On the most recent, Politics Done Right show, on the Pacifica Network’s KPFT 90.1, FM Houston, I had a rant on the Trump/GOP tax cut scam that I believe makes a good template for “informing” any poor or middle-class Trump supporter that they’ve been had. Will it work?
The tax cut scam screwed us six different ways
Here are the simplified basics of the GOP/Trump tax cut scam.
- The wealthy brought back overseas profits at very reduced tax rates enacted in the Trump/GOP tax cut scam. This means less money for the treasury.
- Overseas profits were mostly invested in stock buybacks which increased the stock price and thus the wealth of the wealthy stockholder – potential wage hikes and investment in workers denied.
- Because the “income” is being realized as capital gains, the tax rate will be much lower than dividend income – less money for the treasury as the wealthy gets richer.
- The government must borrow money to fulfill its obligation. Who buys the bonds to loan the government money? You guessed it, the wealthy. And what does that mean? We transfer more of our income and wealth in the form of taxes to pay the interest on the money we borrow from them.
- The government cut programs like healthcare, food stamps, and the like to reduce the budget deficit caused by the tax cuts that go mostly to the wealthy. Any minor tax cut the middle-class and poor would have seen is more than gobbled up by the increase in healthcare premiums, increased fees to parks and more. And guess who profits from that? The wealthy shareholders of the same health insurance companies, hospitals, etc. that charges the public more than they charge the government.
- Economic growth that helps the poor and middle-class is stunted because, in Economic 101 parlance, the marginal propensity to consume by the wealthy is much less than that of the middle-class and poor. In other words, economic activity is determined by the number of times money turns over, the velocity of money.
If you are a Trump supporter I would love to entertain a dialogue on anything you think I got wrong. After validating the previous point, why would a Trump supporter not rebel? Please take the necessary space to do so.
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