Scott Pruitt Is Just A Low-Rent Donald Trump

You have to admit Scott Pruitt’s petty grift is pretty incredible, the latest being getting his staff to help him scour Washington for his favorite moisturizing lotion, which is actually one-notch below getting the discount lunch at the White House mess hall every single day. As Dana Millbank writes, Pruitt really should be better at corruption and this petty grifting “is a tragic case of low self-esteem”.

Now I haven’t looked at Pruitt’s financial disclosure form but it seems pretty clear that Pruitt is very cash poor. His government salary is around $190,000 which puts him in the 39% tax bracket and probably lets him clear around $125,000 each year. That shouldn’t be a problem, except for the enormous albatross of his $850,000 house in a tony Tulsa suburb, a house that he bought with the help of one of his oil benefactors and which has an adjustable mortgage that requires an annual payment of $66,000 and property taxes of around $17,500. These two expenses alone come to nearly $85,000, leaving the Pruitts with around $40,000 in actual spending money to live in Washington. Even if Pruitt had been able to stay in that cozy $50 per night condo provided by a lobbyist  for the whole year, that would have cost him another $18,000. As it is now, the Pruitts are renting an apartment that costs at least $35,000 at a minimum.

Looking at their expenses, it seems clear that Pruitt and his wife absolutely no money to actually live on. Virtually all of their income is going into housing. So it’s no wonder Pruitt is scrounging for food. Of course, they should get a big refund when they actually do file their taxes, but that just may go to pay off the debts they incur during the year simply to eat and drink. No wonder Pruitt is reportedly desperate to have his wife get a job.

In many ways, Scott Pruitt is exactly like Donald Trump, except Pruitt’s dad never gave him a million dollars and left him a functioning business. But it is clear both of them are social strivers who have spent their lives trying and largely failing to become part of the entitled establishment. Pruitt’s house is certainly evidence of that. And both of them have lived a large part of their life actually cash poor but grifting in order to keep up the appearances that they are what they are not. The problem for Pruitt is that he doesn’t have a company that he can charge all his personal expense to. Instead he has spend his time searching DC for today’s blue plate special.

The ostensible reason that Trump is putting up with Pruitt’s corruption is that he is rolling back environmental regulations and taking care of the Republicans’ corporate overlords. But the reality is that Pruitt isn’t really doing a god job of that. And when has Trump thought rationally like that. I think the real reason that Trump puts up with Pruitt is that he sees Pruitt as just mini-me version of himself, low on self-esteem but big on corruption and bluster.