Trump's Big CON: "Enormous Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Will Boost the Economy"

UPDATE III:  "Trump’s irresponsible, non-reality-based budget likely makes it more difficult to pass a budget — any budget — and increases the chances we will drift along from continuing resolution to continuing resolution. The president apparently wants to force Congress to make all the hard choices, but it doesn’t work that way. Without presidential leadership Congress usually becomes paralyzed. Lawmakers who want to make hard choices get undercut by the White House (Well, President Trump says we don’t need entitlement cuts!) and those who want to grandstand are encouraged to do so.

In sum, Trump never thought he’d be president. Right now he’s not acting like one, and unless he screws up some courage and faces reality, he and Republicans won’t get much of anything done. On second thought, that might be the good news."

Read the Washington Post, Why Trump’s nonsensical budget matters.

UPDATE II:  "The Trump budget — which is so far only the barest outlines of a budget — is the GOP stereotype on steroids. Take from the poor to give to the military. Trump will be defending a budget, as far as I can tell, [that] is unrealistic, cruel and obscene. . .

He seems to be proposing massive cuts in the one area of the budget that can't afford it, which would exact a terrible human cost. That is impractical, immoral -- and typical."

Read the Washington Post, George W. Bush’s speechwriter on Trump budget: ‘Unrealistic, cruel and obscene.’

UPDATE:  Trump's "budget numbers come nowhere close to adding up. I don’t mean there’s some discrepancy at the margins, nor am I being the Washington budget scold who bugs you for not paying for your proposals. I’m saying that his budget won’t work.

The problem is that he can’t cut taxes by trillions, increase defense spending, invest in infrastructure, hold Social Security and Medicare harmless, and balance the budget in 10 years without almost getting rid of the rest of the government. And that’s not going to happen."

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s budget plan depends on wholly unrealistic cuts to the rest of government., which includes this graph:

"What if I told you that I could save you thousands and thousands of dollars a year, and you don’t even have to cut back on anything important in your life? What if I promised you that, just by saving a penny a day, your whole life could change for the better? What if I said you could improve your overall finances by working less and spending more?

You’d probably think that sounded too good to be true. You’d probably suspect that I was trying to scam you. You’d be right on both counts.

If early reports are accurate, President Trump’s budget blueprint will be trying to run that same scam on the American people. His budget will pretend that he can achieve huge savings without any pain. . .

Of course, Trump will argue — as good snake-oil salesmen do — that picking your pockets is good for you. You can be sure he will try to sell you on the idea that enormous tax cuts for the wealthy will boost the economy for everyone. Never mind that we’ve tried that before . . .

To be fair to Trump, this is the same scam that Republicans in Congress have been running for six years. Their budgets always contained the same basic tricks and sleights of hand, and they did seem to get away with it.

Read the Washington Post, Trump says his budget will make government ‘lean.’ It’s really a scam.