“If you can’t lie, you’ll never go anywhere.”
“I was not lying. I said things that later on seemed to be untrue.” Richard Nixon.
“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it” Adolf Hitler.
“The rich will not be gaining at all in my tax reform plan.” Donald Trump.
How is that even possible? It’s simply not.
Lowering corporate tax rates even by one percent will ship billions into the pockets of America’s wealthiest through dividends and increases in company stock price. The trillions of dollars stashed overseas by Microsoft, Apple, General Electric, IBM and many others would also be allowed to come back taxed at massively lower rates; right to the bottom line of the already wealthy.
American workers already pay twice as much as wealthy investors in taxes, so how do the rich not gain by any tax cut? It’s first-grade math. Trump’s tax reforms will screw the middle class even more.
With all that revenue given away — what pays for the infrastructure rebuilding of America, for Trump’s promised easy access low-cost full-featured healthcare, for Medicare, Social Security, etc.?
Debt, debt, and more debt. Trump, a four-time bankrupt, has proudly said “I am the king of debt. I love debt.”
Does that sound fiscally responsible to you?
Trump and the GOP claim it’s all a wash because the U.S. will grow so fast it will be like those gas saving devices that will pour gasoline out of your tank the more you drive it.
If that’s true, why is Trump pushing massive debt to create jobs? Why borrow more money essentially permanently if its all going to be paid for by growth anyway? It isn’t, and he knows it.
Like the $4 trillion in cuts proposed in the rush version of the GOP’s Obamacare repeal bill, it purposefully directs money away from mostly blue states that have been successful at covering the uninsured, and toward mostly red states like Alabama that had refused to do so. It does so by spending that money in block grants so politicians can manipulate spending and cut pre-existing condition coverage at will.
This bill is nothing more than another crafted fiscal excuse so there’s plenty of revenue reductions that can be diverted to the most wealthy.
Trump and the GOP display more tolerance for Putin and Russians than they do for uninsured and poor Americans, whom they want to kill off.
Republicans have become obsessed with tax cuts since the days of Ronald Reagan. It is not a coincidence that at the same time the middle class has been destroyed while the rich have greatly prospered. It’s a simple reality, not fake news.
Look at the five-year GOP destruction of public resources in Kansas and see what they want for the rest of America. Governor Brownback and former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (now on Trump’s voter commission) are lauded by Trump to further inflict their brand on America.
The growth of average income from 1980 (Ronald Reagan) to 2015 of the bottom 90 percent of Americans was 0.03 percent in 25 years. At the same time the top 0.01 percent grew by 322 percent. The top 10 percent now hold 3/4 of all forms of wealth and assets combined — the bottom 90 percent hold 1/4. Again, not a coincidence.
The past great tax reforms of Reagan and Bush have one thing in common. The vast majority of the trillions of dollars went mainly to the bottom line of the already wealthy.
China and immigrants didn’t take away American jobs; American businessmen, including Trump, intentionally did that all on their own. Trump’s not going to alienate China and risk having Ivanka lose new trademarks granted to her by the head of Communist China.
In the last nine months, America has become the absolute laughingstock of the world. Trump’s trickle up economics is just another joke on most Americans.
This charlatan of a President, and the Congress that supports his divisive hates, isn’t some game without consequences; it’s about you, your retirement, your healthcare and the future of your children and grandchildren.
Either stop complaining and live with this purposeful inevitable politically directed personal destruction, or wake up and fight.
• Anselm Staack is a retired CPA and attorney with an extensive working background in auditing, fraud and forensic Investigation, IT, personal finance, governmental budgeting and politics at the executive and legislative level. He lives in Juneau.
