When Donald Trump returns from his “Humiliate America Tour” of Asia he will be greeted by politics and scandals that he cannot continue to avoid. His embrace of Vladimir Putin, the ongoing investigation into his collusion with Russia, indictments of his campaign and administration staffers, sexual abuse by GOP senate candidate Roy Moore, and the already floundering Republican attempt at tax reform.
Trump has dived hair first into the tax debate with his customary aversion to the truth. On multiple occasions he has referred to the still stewing tax legislation as the “biggest tax cut in history.” It isn’t. But that didn’t stop his Treasury Secretary (aka the Foreclosure King), Steve Mnuchin, from lying to CNN’s Jake Tapper on behalf of his pathological boss (video below). In this exchange Mnuchin attempts a shady two-step to relocate the goalposts to another county. Tapper addresses the falsehood that Trump is proposing the biggest tax cut in history:
Tapper: We’ve tried to find a way that this is true, but it’s not.
Mnuchin: This will be the largest change since President Reagan.
A large change since Reagan is not the same thing as the biggest cut ever. Tapper displayed several different ways to calculate the tax impact of the Trump bill, but none of them achieved the ludicrous claims of Mnuchin and the President. So Mnuchin reloads and aims to move the goal posts even further by pointing out that just the corporate tax rate would drop from thirty-five percent to twenty. That, of course, has no impact on the tax bills of average Americans. And it still doesn’t support Trump’s gross exaggerations.
Undeterred, Mnuchin followed that up with perhaps the worst defense of fiscal policy imaginable. He bragged that the pass-through tax rate (which mainly benefits large corporations) “is gonna be the lowest rate since the 1930’s.” So Mnuchin is expressing outright pride that his plan matches the one in effect during the Great Depression. Really?
The big lie that Mnuchin, Trump, et al, relentlessly propagate is that our current tax system makes the U.S. uncompetitive. And they say this at the same time that they brag about how great the American economy is doing. Trump praises himself regularly for the historic performance of the stock market (although he has nothing to do with that). But if that’s true, why would we need to give more tax breaks to the very people and businesses who are already disproportionately prospering? Especially at a time when there are so many other critical demands for resources, including natural disaster relief, healthcare, infrastructure, and deficit reduction.
The goal of the Republican Party has always been to restore the economic principles that benefit their primary constituency and donors – corporations. These are the same principles that brought about the Great Recession of 2008, and most other financial disasters. And that includes the Great Depression. However, we do not often hear them so openly admit that this is their objective. It’s bad enough that these robber barons are constantly trying to steal from the American people to enrich themselves. But when they are so comfortable that they feel no need to disguise what they’re doing, it’s a sure sign of trouble ahead.
How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.
First off…who could even listen to, much less believe Mnuchin…the very same Wall St. guy who took advantage of the recession by taking over a mortgage company then rubber stamping foreclosures, even for an 87-yr-old Floridian lady who only was in delinquent mortgage debt of a mere 25 cents to take over individuals’ homes and resell them. Now then…
Republicans…the so called “values” party that stretches from ‘Family Values’ to the laughable ‘Compassionate Conservative Values’ will lie at every instance to deceive the common voter. It’s kind of funny of how gullible the Republican voter is, except when the outcome looms on what their actual policies have incurred upon the nation.
From the ‘Great Depression’ to the world’s largest recession in the ‘Great Recession’ were all due to the actions of Republican “value” policies that if ya take care of the rich and corporate, the trickle effect will benefit all. Nonsense. The rich and corporate retain their money piles…it has never trickled down. U.S. Corporations did not spend, invest or hire during the 2008 recession, no, they sat on their $12.1 trillion pile.
So, the “Values” party, still intent on benefiting their wealthy industrial, corporate and individual donors are attempting once again to fool the common Republican into thinking trickle down works.
As far as the “values” party goes, they’re also the ones rooting for pedophile Moore, halted CHIPS payments and axed DACA this past September and ya just know it…if they get their tax bill, to pay for it…Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and any other social programs they deem does not benefit their wealthy donors, will also have drastic spending cuts or be axed entirely simply to pay for their wealthy tax cuts…
They work a step at a time and that is why not being able to pass their take out 30 million folk from healthcare plan has them scrambling. ACA repeal was their first step in freeing money for their rich tax cuts plan…it didn’t pan out, so don’t think that they won’t take monies away from other programs that benefit all Americans…for they are coming after ’em…
If allowed to gt away with this so called Tax Reform Bill the country will never recover. Its not just a huge giveaway to corporations and the rich but there has been so much buried within it myriad of pages that if passed folks will wake up to multiple disasters on multiple fronts from healthcare to defense to tax increases on those who can afford it the least. This is an egregious use of power to once again steal everything that isn’t nailed down.