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A highwayman in a tailcoat and top-hat with Elon Musk's laughing face points a pair of oversized revolvers at a bent-double Uncle Sam, his face a bitter mask; Sam is being crushed under a small mountain of variegated fardels, e.g., large sacks, barrels, and railroad rails. In the background is a halftoned image of a Falcon Heavy rocket plummeting out of the sky, chased by a plume of flame. Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/52005460639/ CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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A highwayman in a tailcoat and top-hat with Elon Musk's laughing face points a pair of oversized revolvers at a bent-double Uncle Sam, his face a bitter mask; Sam is being crushed under a small mountain of variegated fardels, e.g., large sacks, barrels, and railroad rails. In the background is a halftoned image of a Falcon Heavy rocket plummeting out of the sky, chased by a plume of flame. Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/52005460639/ CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
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Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Jan-2025 02:31:37 JST Cory Doctorow

If Elon Musk wants to cut $2t from the US federal budget, there's a pretty straightforward way to get there - just eliminate all the beltway bandits who overcharge Uncle Sucker for everything from pharmaceuticals to roadworks to (of course) rockets, and then make the rich pay their taxes.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/27/beltway-bandits/#henhouse-foxes
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In conversation about a month ago from mamot.fr permalink