Tag: Republicans
Trump Is His Own Worst Enemy When It Comes To His Taxes

Trump Is His Own Worst Enemy When It Comes To His Taxes

By | | Comments 0 Comment

The New York Times has written an article claiming that Donald Trump paid little or no income tax for many years. Mr. Trump denies paying so little but won’t release his returns. The NY Times will not release its data to protect its source.

Voters can decide whom to believe, but one fact to note is that the story doesn’t assert illegal behavior. The IRS presumably signed off on the Trump returns, except in one case in which it is disputing a $72.9 million deduction claimed by Mr. Trump. This is a fight rich people have with the IRS all the time, often ending in Tax Court.

The report makes much of a deduction Mr. Trump took for business consulting fees that match payments his daughter Ivanka reported in separate filings. There may be legitimate reasons for those fee payments, and Ms. Trump ought to clear the matter up. Paying your adult offspring is not illegal – in fact, it is a good practice. This point should probably be dropped on the social media hate frenzy.

Also, it appears to be a big scandal that Trump paid a hairstylist during his reality TV days. Give me a break. Have you seen this guy’s hair? It would take a wizard to make it look decent. BTW, if you are going to make fun of Trump’s hair, please be honest and make fun of “comb over” Joe Biden also – yes, I am old enough to remember him as being bald.

Is it a scandal if Mr. Trump legally exploited the tax code’s treatment of chronic business losses to pay little tax? Hardly. Mr. Trump admitted this himself in a 2016 debate so there is no news in the NYTimes article – he already told us that he didn’t pay much in personal income taxes. Congress littered the code with loopholes aimed at assisting real-estate businesses, among others. Democrat and Republican elected officials write a tax code to please their corporate donors and then selectively attack CEOs or businesses that use the loopholes.

Here is a hint: if you are a business leader that is going to run for office and challenge the elected elite then you are not allowed to use the tax code to your advantage. But it is okay if you are simply going to take that tax-advantaged and donate to the elected elite. This is especially okay if you are donating to Democrat elected officials.

The story also claims that Mr. Trump’s empire is under financial stress and rising debt. This may be true, but the reporters can’t seem to decide if Mr. Trump is a shark exploiting the White House for personal gain or a sap who is bleeding cash while in office. Brilliant or bumpkin? Make up your mind. Many of Trump’s supporters cite his lack of tax burden as part of the reason they support him saying that he has a brilliant business mind. His enemies would do best to stick to one narrative.

The Times says it will have more such stories in the coming days, and who can doubt it? The press and most of official Washington are all-in to defeat Mr. Trump. I wonder if the FBI is doing a repeat and trying to help the Democrats as well.

Trump has made it easier for his opponents, as he often does. He danced his way through the 2016 campaign with promises to release his returns followed by claims that he couldn’t do so because of an audit. Many of his supporters advised him to do it in the public interest, but there’s no legal obligation for a candidate to release his taxes.

Trump could have controlled the political narrative by releasing his tax returns on his terms and timetable. If he would have done it soon after his election, this story would have died a slow death a long time ago. Now his opponents will do it. As in the past, Trump is his own worst adviser.

Many of the ideas in this story were sourced from this WSJ opinion article.

Many Politicians Are Two-Faced When It Comes To Tariffs

Many Politicians Are Two-Faced When It Comes To Tariffs

By | | Comments 0 Comment

As I write this, POTUS Donald Trump is pledging to begin tariffs on Mexico for its accused lack of assistance in the immigration crisis on the southern border of the US. Here is a quick news account from Politico:

The White House pledged on Thursday to charge ahead on tariffs on Mexico, saying the U.S. position “has not changed” after officials met for a second day to address the steady flow of Central American migrants trying to enter the United States.

Talks between Mexican and U.S. officials at the White House wrapped up without resolution. Several key officials in the administration were unavailable for negotiations. President Donald Trump was in France for the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, and both Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were on the road.

Just about every politician is talking out of both sides of their mouth on this issue. This includes a good portion of the Republicans (especially Mr. Trump) and nearly ever Democrat that I can think of.

To be crystal clear, I despise the use of tariffs against another country. I don’t like taxes in general and using taxes as weapon (i.e. tariffs) is simply a bad practice.

Tariffs are taxes. Plain and simple. They are taxes on corporations that import from the punished country, which in this case is Mexico.

The problem with tariffs and corporate taxes is that corporations never pay taxes. They incur costs. They pass those taxes as costs on to their customers in the form of higher prices for the product. They think of taxes as the same as wages, costs of materials, rent on their buildings, etc. It is a separate line item on their financial sheet, but it is deducted from their income the same way when calculating earnings.

It isn’t the corporation that pays the taxes, it is the consumer. Worse, the tax is regressive in that it is applied to all consumers of the product regardless of their ability to afford to pay or their income. Nearly everyone agrees that regressive taxes that take a larger percentage of poor people’s income than the percentage of wealthy people is unfair. But corporate taxes and tariffs are exactly that – a regressive tax on poor people.

Trump and most Republicans want lower corporate taxes. This, in general, is a good thing because as I said above, corporations don’t pay taxes – they only incur costs that are passed to their consumers. Corporate taxes are an evil and regressive tax against consumers.

So it is illegitimate for Trump and these anti-corporate tax Republicans to support the tariff on Mexico (and probably on China, but China is a different problem).

Democrat readers shouldn’t get too excited about the above paragraph, as they are actually worse.

Most of the leaders of the Democrat party are in favor of raising corporate taxes. This is a terrible stance since, as I stated above, corporate taxes are simply a regressive tax against the poor. The Democrats are supposed to be the party of the poor worker and yet they support regressively taxing those people. That is incredibly evil and insincere. They only do it because it plays well in political speeches. Democrats don’t really want to help poor people, they just want to be re-elected (which is also the goal of Republicans). They are willing to be for a tax that hurts their constituents rather than be truthful and lead those constituents. This is unbelievably cruel and ruthless.

But then Democrats become even more two-faced. Because they hate Trump so much they oppose the Mexican tariff. This is ridiculous if they were ideologically pure since tariffs (while very bad IMO) are simply what most Democrats espouse – higher corporate taxes.

So what does all of that mean?

Unfortunately, it is simple. Both parties are mostly evil and don’t want to help Americans. They are willing to lie and mislead their constituents simply to retain their individual jobs. The only valid option as voters is to THROW THE BUMS OUT! EVERY LAST SITTING FEDERAL POLITICIAN NEEDS TO LOSE THEIR JOB IN THEIR NEXT ELECTION!

First thoughts on the day after election

First thoughts on the day after election

By | | Comments 0 Comment

The massive mid-term election of 2010 is now over. My phone won’t ring 25 times today with some computer imploring me to vote for one candidate over another. The signs that are all along the streets in my town can come down (hopefully the candidates come out and clean up their mess). Life can now go back to some sort of normal.

The Republicans evidently picked up approximately 60 seats in the House of Representatives. They also made major increases in the Senate and that house appears to be split nearly 50/50 (the exact count probably won’t be known for a couple days as Alaska will probably take a while to count due to the write-in candidate).

What does this election mean? Does it mean that the 2-year era of liberalism is over? Does it mean that conservatism is the rule of the day? Does it mean that Barack Hussein Obama will lose in 2 years? Does it mean that the Republicans have a mandate to go ultra-conservative? Does it mean that the poor and down-trodden will need to look for their medicine in the trash cans of the homes of the wealthy? Does it mean that I have to give up drinking coffee and now drink tea?

What I am 100% confident in is that it doesn’t mean any of the above! It doesn’t mean that BHO is done. It doesn’t mean that all of healthcare should just go to the wealthiest. It doesn’t mean that we should now savage the environment.

I don’t think that the newly elected Republicans have a mandate at all except for the mandate to do a good job and figure out the best way to solve each individual problem regardless of party direction.

I think it means that Americans want a government that works. We want it to work rather slowly and deliberately. We want politicians that don’t act like politicians but rather act like leaders. We want compromise to be the rule of the day. We want our leaders to read, understand, and thoughtfully debate the bills that are before them. We don’t want to find out about what is in the bill after it is turned into law – we want our leaders to know what is in the bill before they make it a law.

We don’t want stagnation. If Boehner drives the government to a stall the way that Gingrich did, that would be a mistake.

Most of all, I think Americans don’t want to deal with the federal government. We don’t want our lives to be tied up with governing. Life is hard enough with births, jobs, bills, lousy bosses, teenagers, sickness, and death – we don’t want to worry about the feds as well. I think most Americans would be perfectly happy if government would just get out of our lives with the exception of keeping us safe, making sure the infrastructure works, and helping out with the truly disadvantaged. We will pay a reasonable tax for that as long as we think it is well managed.

I raise my coffee cup in a salute to the Tea Party activists for energizing America in making their point. That point, I believe, is that we want our legislators to pay attention to us, don’t tax us to death, and spend what you need but make sure what you buy is needed. 2 years ago, pundits were saying that the Republican party was dead, now the pundits need to say, “Listen to your constituents if you want to keep your job.” 

There is no such thing as a mandate to do radical things. Extremism is a bad position no matter which side of the scale you are on.

If the grown men and women in the federal government can’t get along better than a bunch of nursery school kids, then we will take away their ball and send a new bunch of children to Washington in 2 years.

The turncoat Arlen Specter has met his end!

The turncoat Arlen Specter has met his end!

By | | Comments 0 Comment

Long-time US Senator Arlen Specter will not be returning next term! This is a true win for Americans!

I don’t have a huge problem with Mr. Specter on his voting record. He typically was a pain in the ass for everyone and it appeared that over the years, no one controlled him. My problem is the game that he played to avoid the voters in Pennsylvania. About a year ago, Senator Specter realized that his Republican base had dwindled considerably and he would probably not win a primary contest. Not wanting to put his career at the stake of these voters, Sen. Specter switched parties and said he was a Democrat. Yesterday, the Democrat Party voters rejected Mr. Specter as their candidate to run for the Senate seat.

Of course, Mr. Specter could still run for Senate. He could say that all parties are bad and run as an independent. He does not appear to have the ambition to do that based on this video clip.

Let this be a lesson to all public officials. Don’t play games with us anymore. We are tired of the half-truths and back-room deals. We want our elected officials to do what we want them to do. If you don’t do it, you are going to have to find another job.

In general, if they are serving today – don’t vote for them! Throw the bums out!

Site info