Trump is more dangerous than the snake oil salesman to the folks who voted for him. At least you have the option to buy or not. Trump uses his constituents solely for their vote, and then he pilfers them and the rest of us. This particular one should irk us all.
Trump and his cabal were not satisfied with their looting using the tax cut scam as the method to do it. Now comes Trump tax cut scam 2.0. They want to reduced taxes on capital gains even though already taxes on those have a lower rate than income taxes above certain wages. Robert Reich slammed the theft as follows.
Here are three reasons why reducing capital gains taxes would be another tax scam for the rich.
1. The people who’d get most of the benefits are already richer than ever and pay a lower effective tax rate than they have in decades. An estimated 63 percent of the benefits of this proposal would go to the wealthiest one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans, while the bottom 80 percent of us would get only 1 percent of its benefits, according to a University of Pennsylvania Wharton School analysis.
If anything, Congress should raise capital gains taxes, not lower them. The capital gains tax rate is already lower than the rate on ordinary income. Yet the wealthy now own most of the nation’s assets and enjoy most of the capital gains. In 2016 (the most recent date for which data are available), the richest 10 percent owned 84 percent of the entire stock market.
2. The cost of this change would be a whopping $10 billion a year, for the next 10 years. That’s just about the yearly cost of funding free lunches for 20 million poor kids. Yet the federal debt is already ballooning. Over ten years, this proposal would increase it by an estimated $100 to $300 billion.
3. Trump and his administration say they have the power to make this change by themselves without even being authorized to do so by Congress. Rubbish. Congress has already decided that capital gains taxes should not be indexed for inflation. That’s why, when the same idea came up during the George H.W. Bush administration, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel stopped it cold.
It’s another big handout to the wealthy, another huge increase in the federal deficit, and it’s illegal. Don’t let Trump and his enablers get away with this tax scam for the rich.
It is important to note that current policy continues to favor those with money and capital over those who work for it. Most of the diehard Trump supporters work very hard. Trump made them believe he was going to Washington to work on their behalf. However, his policies continue to materially hurt them. There is absolutely no reason why taxes on the wages of a person who works every day should be higher than somebody who stuffs their money into stocks. It is not only unfair and unethical, but it is also immoral.
A few months ago I explained the six ways how Trump’s tax cut scam screwed us all. We even pointed out the direct result of his scam for his wealthy friends. But of course, Donald Trump said it best directly to his friends as reported by the Independent.
Hours after signing a sweeping tax bill that independent analysts say will most benefit corporations and wealthy Americans, Donald Trump reportedly told friends at his private Florida club: “You all just got a lot richer.”
The White House has claimed the tax bill Mr Trump signed into law on Friday, the biggest overhaul of the system since 1986 and his first major legislative accomplishment, would help all Americans, even though independent analysts say the wealthiest will benefit the most.
Mr Trump, however, has been less effective at sticking to those talking points. While talking about the bill during a cabinet meeting days earlier, Mr Trump referred to the cut in corporate tax, from 35 per cent to 21 per cent. “That’s probably the biggest factor in our plan,” he said.
Enough said!