Mobsters used to hand out food to the people in the neighbourhood,

[eppur_se_muova]

2. SO APPROPRIATE !! As I was waiting for the message to finish loading, I was thinking "I'm gonna make a comparison ..."

"... to Eloon's offer to pay some of the expenses of running the gov't (whatever the details)". But that's what YOU were posting about ! He's obviously trying to buy goodwill, knowing it will pay off in big fat defense contracts for several of his companies -- as Trmp has already rewarded him lavishly several times. It may not buy him any goodwill with the voters/taxpayers, but who cares about them ? As long as TPTB are willing to work with him, it doesn't make much difference what the voting public thinks. Captive pols are owned by their donors, not their voters.

Old-fashioned crooks gave help to locals who genuinely needed it. Modern crooks dump billions (often as magically-generated stock options) into the coffers of whoever has his hand out **AND** has the power to return favors in great disproportion to the "donation". That's not charity, that's the Art of the Deal.