Pay the Man

The Trump tax proposal is short but far from sweet. I found the one page release too ludicrous to laugh at. Breakdowns of what is included are available from multiple sources such as NBC News and CNN Money. To me the biggest take away is how this budget it obviously a rich man's attempt at living on a budget, and failing miserably.

Let's imagine for a moment that the Federal government is an individual trying to make their way in the world. An individual needs money to live off of in the same way the government needs money to perform its essential functions. An individual must pay their bills, buy food, and generally have some money to put into savings and for entertainment in the same way the government has bills to pay, programs to fund, etc. If an individual uses more money than they bring in they go into debt, the same as our federal government. The average, middle class American should about break even with their income vs. spending. If that individual made the voluntary decision to reduce their income substantially but still insisted on maintaining their same spending habits they would be insane, but that is exactly what Trump has set forth to do. He obviously has no understanding of living within your means.

In March I wrote about Trump's Fiscal Year 2018 plan. In this plan he states that he will not raise the national debt but his final numbers do not show any reduction in national spending either. His tax plan, on the other hand, reduces taxes across the board, especially for businesses and the wealthy, without providing any substantial and continuing replacement for the lost funding. This is just as insane as the hypothetical individual above who spends the same even though their income is drastically cut. Supposedly a hard line was taken on the budget but should not an equally hard line be taken on taxes?

Supposedly the cut in taxes will be made up for by economic growth. Even if it was possible to fill the financial gap in this way it would be years before the economy could adjust to fully make up for the cuts. During those intervening years without substantial budget cuts and/or some sort of transitional tax revenue our national debt will balloon even more than it already has.

Trying to get inside Trump's head (a horrifying thought) can only lead me to believe that this plan was designed to provide the greatest possible benefit to Trump personally. Who else could possibly stand to benefit more than people like Trump when you slash the business tax from 35% to 15% and reduce personal income tax from 39.6% to 35% for the highest wage earners? He may also be attempting to salvage his abysmal approval ratings by doing a whitewashed tax cut regardless of the consequences. His obvious love of the lime light would support this second theory.

I would also like to point out his use of the term "death tax" instead of the official term "estate tax" in the release. This is an obvious propaganda ploy to draw a negative connotation to the tax. A tax, it should be known, that only effects estates with a value greater than $5.5 million. In other words estates belonging to people like the Trumps, not middle class Americans and certainly not those of low income.

With just a very basic outline to go off of it may be too soon to tell, but it definitely does not start the tax debate off on the right foot.