Day: 9/27/2017

Trump Says His Tax Reform Plan Is ‘Not Good For Me, Believe Me’ – Hell No. Release YOUR Taxes!

Posted by on September 27, 2017 at 4:05 pm. 3 Comments :

This week Donald Trump suffered another legislative defeat as his latest attempt to kill ObamaCare was declared dead (again). So he traveled to Indiana on Wednesday to deliver a speech on his next project, tax reform. He promised to spell out the details of the plan that he will present to Congress. For the most part it was a rehashed jumble of familiar Republican proposals that rotted on the vine decades ago.

Donald Trump

Trump’s snake oil speech peddled such scams as eliminating the estate tax, that affects only 0.2 percent of taxpayers. He also wants to nix the Alternative Minimum Tax that insures that wealthy folks like himself can’t pile up deductions and pay nothing. Corporations will cheer Trump’s proposal to cut their tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. Never mind that the current schedule hasn’t stopped them from achieving record profits. He would also give them a privileged rate to repatriate offshore funds. It’s ironic that Trump has no problem demeaning the patriotism of people who protest systemic racism, but corporation that hoard money abroad to keep it out of U.S. treasuries – where it would benefit all Americans – are patriotic victims of the system.

Virtually everything in Trump’s plan would benefit corporations and the rich. His proposed tax brackets of 12 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent, would insure that those with higher income would bear a smaller share of the overall tax burden. At this time Trump has left out popular deductions for things like mortgage interest, charitable donations, or medical expenses. And all of this would supposedly be paid for by a growing economy. Except that that theory has been proven false every time Republicans implemented it in the past. And especially now, when economic recovery is in its eighth year and unemployment is at historic lows, it would have little to no impact.

So it was jarring to hear the President champion this creaky GOP sham as beneficial to low income earners. But to make matters worse, he adorned his gift to rich Americans with this shameless claim to selflessness (video below):

“Our framework includes an explicit commitment that tax refom will protect low income and middle income households, not the wealthy and well-connected. They can call me all they want. Not gonna help. I’m doing the right thing. And it’s not good for me, believe me.”

Believe you? Why the hell would anyone do that? If there’s one thing that Donald Trump is known for, it’s lying. His rated comments at PolitiFact are 69 percent “Mostly False, False” or “Pants on Fire.” He has been scored as telling a lie on average every three minutes. And the Washington Post has collected over 1,000 lies Trump has told since his inauguration.

More to the point, asking people to believe him about his taxes is the height of hubris. Despite promising to release his tax returns during the campaign, he now adamantly refuses to do so. Why would he break that campaign promise unless there was something seriously damaging in his taxes? It could be that he isn’t the success story he claims to be. Or maybe there are blatant violations of the law. It could reveal associations with mobsters. Or even worse – Russians. Anyone who is dumb enough to take Trump at his word should not be allowed outside of an institution. And if Trump wants to us to accept his claim that his tax proposals won’t benefit him, all he has to do is release his taxes. Don’t hold your breath.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.