LET THEM EAT CAKE

Lara Trump, daughter-in-law of Pres. Donald Trump regarding the government shutdown said,  "Listen, it's not fair to you and we all get that but this is so much bigger than any one person," said Lara, who is married to the president's son, Eric. "It is a little bit of pain but it's going to be for the future of our country."*

After I wrote the above paragraph, I read a number of instances of people on TV saying "Let Them Eat Cake" about 81-yr-old Sec. Commerce Wilber Ross**

This phrase (Let Them Eat Cake), erroneously attributed to Marie Antoinette in 1843,*** seems to apply equally well to Lara Trump and her "little bit of pain" phrase concerning laid-off government and contract workers during the Trump record Federal shutdown of 2018-2019.  It also applies to Wilber Ross.

Wilber Ross is a very controversial figure and I wonder why he is in our government.  Here is an excerpt from his piece on Wikipedia:
In June 2018, it was revealed that Ross had failed to divest from his financial holdings, contradicting Ross's November 2017 promise in writing to the Office of Government Ethics that he had divested all his financial holdings.[52] According to Forbes, Ross may have broken the law in doing so.[52] An investigation by Forbes found that Ross, while secretary of commerce, owned for most of 2017 "stakes in companies co-owned by the Chinese government, a shipping firm tied to Vladimir Putin's inner circle, a Cypriot bank reportedly caught up in the Robert Mueller investigation and a huge player in an industry Ross is now investigating."[52] Rather than divest from all the financial holdings, he put some of them in a trust for his family members.[52] These holdings posed a conflict of interest for Ross, as the Trump administration was in a position to affect the value of the holdings.[52] **** 

In addition, it appears that Ross has lied about the size of his fortune:
"A year earlier, Forbes had listed his net worth at $2.9 billion on The Forbes 400, a number Ross claimed was far too low: He maintained he was closer to $3.7 billion. Now, after examining the financial-disclosure forms he filed after his nomination to President Donald Trump's Cabinet, which showed less than $700 million in assets, Forbes was intent on removing him entirely."****

I suspect that a good deal of Republicans subscribe to the Let Them Eat Cake credo.  Take ultra-conservative commentator Ann Coulter for example.  She says she worries about the American workers, but it doesn't bother her to put more than a couple million government workers and contractors (or more) out of work on a shutdown over a wall.  I'm sorry but I view her as an evil person. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Coulter).

Note added January 27, 2019: The shutdown is temporarily abandoned for three weeks.  It is felt that the shutdown won't be reopened.  A committee has been formed of Republicans and Democrats to come up with the solution to Pres. Trump's demands of $5.7 billion for a wall with Mexico.

* https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/23/government-shutdown-lara-trump-says-little-bit-pain-worth-border-wall/2660066002/
** https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/24/us/politics/democrats-shutdown.html
*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake
**** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilbur_Ross
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/11/07/the-case-of-wilbur-ross-phantom-2-billion/#2e0ca98f7515