Trump's Big CON: He Laughs at His Supporters

UPDATE II:  "The only thing today’s Republican Party knows how to do is cut taxes for the very rich.

It’s depressing because the GOP has abandoned roles it once played in our public life: pioneering programs aimed at assisting Americans of modest means in lifting themselves up, and supporting productive government investments that the private sector was unlikely to undertake.

The party of Donald Trump, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell has abandoned the legacy of Abraham Lincoln, who championed the Homestead Act and land-grant colleges; Teddy Roosevelt, who protected vast tracts of nature on behalf of future generations; and Dwight Eisenhower, who pushed for student loans and the Interstate Highway System.

The heirs to Honest Abe, TR and Ike seem to believe in only one thing: throwing vast quantities of money at the already wealthy. And they have the nerve to pretend that they aren’t really trying to further enrich the moneyed classes. They claim that comforting the comfortable will someday, really and truly, help working people by creating jobs and economic growth.

They pretend a lot of other things, too. They say their goal is to 'simplify' the tax system, so they reduce the number of individual income-tax brackets to three. Isn’t it funny that in their “simplification,” the tax rate for the richest among us (people earning more than $418,400 a year) would drop from 39.6 percent to 35 percent, but the tax rate for the poorest (those earning less than $9,325 a year) actually would go up , from 10 percent to 12 percent?

The GOP apparently believes that taxing the poor is part of the recipe for growth. Now there is an innovative idea. . .

For eight months, Republicans told us repeatedly that they would enact a tax bill. Yet they still can’t show us the whole thing.

In fact, for a large swath of the middle and upper-middle classes, this is not a tax cut at all, but a tax increase. Using the details available, the Tax Policy Center concluded that nearly a third of taxpayers with incomes between $50,000 and $150,000 would see their taxes go up, as would a majority of those making between $150,000 and $300,000.

There is much that is very bad here, but perhaps the most insidious aspect of the bill is the part that might be called the Punish Our Opponents Tax Act of 2017.

To pay for their tax cuts for the rich, Republicans propose to make the tax code 'fairer' by getting rid of the deduction that people can take for the taxes they pay to state and local governments. Republicans rail against “double taxation” of income when it comes to capital gains. But they have no problem with double taxation when it hurts taxpayers in states that ask their citizens to pay a bit more to provide decent public services and stronger social safety nets.

As the Wall Street Journal reported, the states with the largest deductions for state and local taxes as a percentage of adjusted gross income are New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California and Maryland. All voted against Trump. . .

Naturally, a tax proposal designed to pamper the super-rich does exactly that for a man named Donald Trump. The New York Times estimated his savings at about $1 billion. But his refusal to release his tax returns conveniently clouds how much he’ll get.":

Read the Washington Post,

UPDATE: "President Trump and congressional Republicans keep saying their tax plan doesn't help the rich. But that's not true. . .

In fact, in nine pages, The Washington Post counts at least nine ways the wealthy benefit, including Trump himself. Here's our list:

1) A straight-up tax cut for the rich. . .

2) The estate tax goes bye-bye. . .

3) Hedge funds and lawyers get a special tax break. . .

4) The AMT is over. . .

5) The wealthy get to keep deducting mortgage interest. . .

6) Stockholders are going to be very happy. . .

7) The favorite tax break of hedge fund billionaires is still safe. . .

8) Capital gains taxes stay low. . .

9) The Obamacare investment tax goes away. . .

When reporters asked Trump whether the tax plan would help him personally, he quickly said no. . .

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), who was part of the team that worked with the White House to craft the tax-overhaul outline, was asked a similar question on Fox News. He, too, said this plan does little to help the rich.

'I think those who benefit most are middle-class families struggling to keep every dollar they earn,' Brady told Fox News.

But one look at this plan tells a very different story. It gives an outright tax cut to the wealthiest Americans and it preserves almost all of the most popular loopholes they use to reduce their tax bills.

Read the Washington Post, 9 ways Trump’s tax plan is a gift to the rich, including himself.

"The term 'deplorables' survives today in our political lexicon as a kind of sarcastic badge of honor that President Trump’s supporters pin on themselves. When self-applied by the likes of Stephen K. Bannon, it serves as a device to feed the narrative that liberal elite criticism of Trump — including the argument that he is scamming his own voters — signifies nothing but cultural contempt for Trump’s America. Trump supporters won’t let supercilious liberal disdain weaken their conviction that Trump is the one who is really on their side, dammit!

But a host of new developments underscore with fresh clarity that if anyone views Trump supporters with profound contempt, it’s Trump and his advisers — and that liberals are right to point out that he is actively trying to fleece them. Consider:

    Trump’s new tax plan eliminates the estate tax, which he has justified by claiming that it would help 'millions of small businesses and the American farmer.' That’s a paean to his small-business and rural base. But as the Post fact-checking team points out, this is absurd: Because only the very top estates get targeted, a mere 80 such estates that would get hit by the tax in 2017 count as small businesses and farms. However, Trump’s family would benefit bigly, because his estimated net worth is in the billions. . .

    Trump’s new tax plan eliminates the alternative minimum tax. As Linda Qiu explains, this 'largely impacts people making between $200,000 and $1 million. Without this tax, Mr. Trump would have paid $31 million less in taxes in 2005, according to his tax return that year, which was disclosed on the ‘Rachel Maddow Show’ in March.'

    The mere fact that Trump would benefit from his tax plan does not itself mean he is scamming his supporters. Rather, the key here is that Trump is lying to them about this point. Trump says this about his plan: 'It’s not good for me, believe me.' But not only would he benefit, Trump also still won’t release his tax returns, which would actually allow us to evaluate how his plan would affect him and his family. Trump doesn’t want his voters (or any voters) to be able to do this. Trump is simply assuming that his voters will believe him (or he doesn’t care whether they do or not), even though he’s lying to them.

    Trump claims his tax plan will not benefit 'the wealthy and well-connected' and will protect 'low-income and middle-income households.' But a new analysis by the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities undercuts both claims. Trump’s plan would also lower the top marginal income tax rate from 39.6 to 35 percent, lower the rate on 'pass-through' businesses to 20 percent and cut the corporate rate from 35 to 20 percent. The CBPP analysis concludes that 50 percent of the net tax cuts in his plan’s framework would go to the top 1 percent of earners and that the impact on middle-class families would negligible at best. . . Trump’s empty promise to his working- and middle-class supporters is being used to sell tax cuts that will likely shower large benefits on the wealthy — himself included.

    Trump is sabotaging Obamacare in new ways that will likely hurt untold numbers of his voters. . .

    The Trump administration’s sabotage of the Affordable Care Act shows contempt for his supporters in another way. In its statement justifying the latest pullout from enrollment events, HHS did not even attempt to offer an actual policy rationale for the move — there is none — and instead lied robotically about how Obamacare 'continues to collapse.' But the Trump administration’s actions are encouraging chaos in that direction. . .

The point here is not that this should reflect badly on Trump supporters. They of course may disagree that all these things operate against their interests, or they may have plenty of other reasons to continue backing him anyway. Rather, the point is that the arguments that Trump and his administration are making to them on all these fronts are not being made in good faith, as if Trump believes his own supporters can be lied to or betrayed with great ease. Never mind whether they’re 'deplorables' — Trump himself is treating them like a bunch of suckers."

Read the Washington Post, Hey, deplorables: Trump and his advisers are laughing in your faces.

Read also Trump's Big CON: Happy Labor Day Suckers!

Trump's Big CON: Trapped by Lies

UPDATE II:  "The Republican Party has become an unstable and potentially unsustainable coalition. The danger has been apparent from the day President Trump began his quest for the White House. Roy Moore’s victory in the Alabama Republican primary provided the exclamation point.

Moore’s victory was telling for what it showed: that the Trump message has more power at the grass-roots than the president himself. Trump was persuaded to embrace Sen. Luther Strange in the GOP runoff against Moore. But it was the anti-Washington, anti-establishment message of the twice-removed state Supreme Court justice that prevailed Tuesday.

That this is a period of turmoil and flux in American politics states the obvious. Tribal voting has become the norm, with the country divided into red and blue camps. . .

Yet the red-blue alliances and the left-right differences are no longer sufficient to explain the tensions and divisions that mark the politics of the Trump era. They still shape political debates and policy differences; they still help predict general-election voting patterns. But alone, they do not provide the fuller framework for such an unusual time. Neither party is offering answers.

For establishment Republicans in Washington, Tuesday was perhaps the worst day among many bad days. It was a trifecta of disappointment and rejection. The failure of the party that controls so many levers of power to govern effectively and the consequences of that inaction rarely have been on such public display.

The day started with the Senate leadership’s capitulation on health care. . .

There then was the announcement by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) that he plans to retire at the end of his term in 2018. . .

Finally, on Tuesday night, there was Moore’s victory, though it was hardly a surprise. . .

The larger challenge for Republicans is trying to find a way to govern in the midst of a civil war. The party establishment proved powerless in its efforts to deny Trump the GOP nomination last year, then assumed he could not be elected, then tried to make peace with the fact that he had won. GOP leaders nonetheless held out hope that Trump would be a somewhat malleable president, that he would follow their lead on policy and use the unique megaphone that he has developed to advance the cause.

But that assumption turned out to be incorrect for at least two reasons. First, that Trump’s agenda was their agenda, that he was as interested in party success as in personal success. Second, that the divisions that had immobilized congressional Republicans long before Trump became a candidate would somehow disappear if the party controlled the White House. They didn’t.

The GOP today is an awkward combination of establishment Republicans who have embraced the president out of what they consider necessity; grass-roots citizens only partially attached to the Republican Party and for whom Trump’s populist, 'America first,' anti-Washington rhetoric strikes a chord; and 'Never Trump' Republicans who formed an important part of the party before Trump came on the scene and who are looking for a home and don’t know what to do.

This is a conflict with no certain outcome and no clear timeline. It reflects instability across the political spectrum and the shifting sensibilities of many voters. Above all, it reflects politics in the age of Trump and all that has come to mean."

Read the Washington Post, Can the GOP ever finesse the contradictions in their coalition?

UPDATE:  "Two in three Americans believe that large corporations pay too little in taxes. Only 11 percent of U.S. adults think these businesses pay too much, while 17 percent think they pay their fair share. Even half of Republicans believe big businesses pay too little in taxes, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Overwhelmingly, across party lines, people feel that the current tax system is rigged in favor of the wealthy. Over 7 in 10 Americans think the tax system favors the rich. Just five percent think the current code favors the middle class.

But the more details that leak out about President Trump’s plan, the clearer it becomes that the wealthiest are likely to be the biggest beneficiaries. Top White House negotiators and key GOP leaders have reportedly agreed on two targets: lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent and cutting the top income tax rate — for those who make more than $418,000 a year — from 39.6 percent to 35 percent. . .

This is part of a pattern: Trump campaigns like a populist. He governs like a plutocrat. The dichotomy between what the president promises his tax plan will do and what’s he’s likely to unveil on Wednesday is just the latest example of the president’s actions not backing up his rhetoric.

As a candidate, Trump said hedge fund managers weren’t supporting his campaign because they were 'getting away with murder' when it came to avoiding taxes. He said he would stop them and argued during the debates that he was well suited to close loopholes in the tax code because he had taken advantage of them.

Then, as president-elect, he was caught on a cellphone camera reassuring patrons at one of Manhattan’s poshest restaurants. 'We’ll get your taxes down, don’t worry about it,' he said at the 21 Club.

With the Trump administration, always watch what they do — not what they say. "

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s plutocracy problem complicates push for tax cuts. 

Republi-CONs "have spent years routinely lying for the sake of political advantage. And now — not just on health care, but across the board — they are trapped by their own lies, forced into trying to enact policies they know won’t work.

Reporting on why the G.O.P. plowed ahead with Graham-Cassidy makes it clear that many Republicans supporting it are well aware that it’s a bad bill, although they may not appreciate just how bad. 'You know, I could maybe give you 10 reasons why this bill shouldn’t be considered,' said Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa. 'But,' he continued, 'Republicans have campaigned on this,' meaning repeal-and-replace, and had to fulfill their promise. . .

But repealing the Affordable Care Act wasn’t the only thing Republicans promised; they also promised to replace it with something better and cheaper, doing away with all the things people don’t like about Obamacare without creating any new problems. Remember, it was Bill Cassidy, not Jimmy Kimmel, who came up with the 'Jimmy Kimmel test,' the pledge that nobody would be denied health care because of expense.

Yet Republicans never had any idea how to fulfill that promise and meet that test, or indeed how to repeal the A.C.A. without taking insurance away from tens of millions. That is, they were lying about health care all along. . .

The thing is, health care isn’t the only issue on which lies are coming back to bite the liars. The same story is playing out on other issues — in fact, on almost every substantive policy issue the U.S. faces. [including tax 'reform' and foreign affairs]. . .

As with health care, the party has masked its lack of good ideas on [tax reform] with lies, claiming that it would offset lower tax rates and even reduce the deficit by eliminating unnamed loopholes and slashing unnamed wasteful spending. But as with health care, these lies will be revealed once actual legislation is unveiled. It’s telling that Republicans are already invoking voodoo economics to justify their as-yet-unspecified tax plans, insisting that tax cuts will pay for themselves by leading to higher economic growth.

At this point, however, few people believe them. The Bush tax cuts didn’t create a boom; neither did the Kansas tax-cut 'experiment.' Conversely, the U.S. economy did fine after the 2013 Obama tax hike, as has the California economy since Jerry Brown raised state taxes. Party apparatchiks will no doubt engage in an orgy of Reaganolatry, but the broader public probably won’t be moved by (false) claims about the wondrous results of tax cuts 36 years ago.

So tax policy, like health care, will be hobbled by a legacy of lies.

Wait, there’s more.

Foreign policy isn’t usually a central concern for voters. Still, past lies have put the Trump administration in a box over things like the Iran nuclear deal: Canceling the deal would create huge problems, yet not canceling it would amount to an admission that the criticisms were dishonest.

And soon the G.O.P. may even start to pay a price for lying about climate change.

The bottom line is that the bill for cynicism seems to be coming due. For years, flat-out lies about policy served Republicans well, helping them win back control of Congress and, eventually, the White House. But those same lies now leave them unable to govern."

Read The New York Times, Trapped by Their Own Lies.