After failing on everything they tried in the first six months of the Trump administration, the Republicans who have all the power in this government are now looking at tax reform. Tax reform? How the hell do they ever expect to get something done in tax reform, which is probably the most complicated negotiation that can be conducted by any government, when they can’t even cross at the light?
The mix needed, just in the GOP alone, is so confusing that even the experts can’t figure it out. You have the Freedom Caucus, the remnants of the Tea Party who only want tax savings for big business and the rich, you have conservative Republicans who are mainly interested in cutting the debt, and you have moderate Republicans who are interested in the debt but also have reservations about further killing the middle class.
On the other side you have establishment Democrats who will not even discuss tax cuts for the rich or any money going for The Wall and who desperately want a way to put money into infrastructure. They are often at odds with the seriously progressive left that wants to tax the rich at 90% and give all the money available to entitlements. Then there’s the President who won’t spend the time to find out what the various legislation is about and who doesn’t really care what’s in said legislation, as long as it passes and he can get a win in the “bills passed” column.
Historically, Trump is a spoiled rich kid who has spent is life cheating anyone dumb enough to fall under his purview. At 71 he isn’t going to change. Someone in the swamp he calls a cabinet and White House has to point out that maybe 33% isn’t good enough to get elected again or to pass any legislation. If there is someone he listens to, that person may have already pointed out that he must get off the dysfunctional course he has laid out for himself, and that may be why, he’s suddenly making nice to the Democrats. That connection resulted in a bill to deal with the debt ceiling and the financing of the weather disasters being passed. So he finally has one in the win column.
Trump may be an egomaniacal sociopath but he’s not a dumb one. He now sees a way to play the Democrats off against McConnell, who he hates, and Ryan who he dismisses, and maybe get a couple of other things passed. As stated above he doesn’t really care what these bills are so long as they go into the win column and right now, today, the Democrats are his tools of passage. What he doesn’t realize, maybe because he isn’t educated enough in our political system or maybe because his ego keeps getting in the way of his brain, is that the Democrats went along with him because they got something without having to give anything away. The whole process will put the Republicans in a bind again in three months.
But Trump doesn’t care about this political infighting. He is no more a Republican than he is a Democrat. He’s a Trumpian. He cares only about himself and would sell the rest of the country down the drain for the land on which to build another cheesy hotel.
So what happens next? What does the country need and how do we go about getting it? Right now even as I write this, Trump is running a re-election ad on the tube that speaks to a million jobs added to the American economy, a massive rise in the stock market and a lot of other bullshit that is either lies or half-truths presented in a way that makes it look like Trump has accomplished something when he just flat out hasn’t.
The job increase was already happening under Obama. In fact it was happening at a higher rate than it is now under Trump. The stock market has been going up since 2009 and that really has very little relevance to most working people. Other than the wealthy, most people in this country have no ability to invest in the stock market. Yes, many of them have IRA’s or union retirement accounts but those do not make them investors in the stock market and certainly don’t help them in their day-to-day working lives.
What the average American needs is a tax system that encourages business and industry to pay higher wages. It’s as simple as that and man, that is not simple. There is only one key to American prosperity and that is higher wages for the middle class and the working poor. Unemployment is not the problem. Right now we have only about 4% unemployment and that is dropping. That’s normal. Yes, we do have pockets of those who have lost their jobs, mostly through automation and obsolescence but most of those jobs can be replaced if those currently unemployed are retrained or if those hard core debt freaks can be convinced that the way out of debt is to spend on infrastructure and pump money to the people instead of cutting taxes and pumping money back to the already rich.
Poor or middle class people, because they lack so much in their lives, spend the money they make, thereby bracing up the economy. Rich people, because they already have everything, save that money, putting it into trusts and other vehicles that take it out of circulation, thereby hurting the economy. If we want to have a vibrant economy we have to get more money into the hands of those who will spend it, thereby propping up businesses that pay taxes and make more stuff for those people to buy.
I hate to have to keep going back to the post WWII economy but it is the perfect example. We had debts to pay, a nation to build and infrastructure to create in order that business could forge ahead and we taxed those that needed less and paid higher wages to those that needed more. I am not advocating a return to a 90% tax rate on the rich, what I am saying is that they certainly don’t need a tax reduction. When a man makes $15 million per year, the average for CEO’s of our large corporations, he has, more than enough to buy anything that a human being could conceivably need, even if he does pay 50 or 60% in taxes.
The problem with trying to make that CEO pay higher taxes is that he and his ilk spend a lot of money keeping their taxes low. That money, to a great extent, goes to politicians. Now, not all politicians are on the take. Some actually believe that if we give more money to the rich and to big business it will be used to create new jobs. I don’t see how any lucid man can come to that conclusion when one looks at history, but there are still those who push this economic philosophy. Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan would have us believe that they truly believe this to be the case. That is why there are those among us that call them sleazy crooks.
There is no way McConnell and Ryan are ever going to agree that the rich should pay more taxes. Reason has nothing to do with it. Money has everything to do with it. There is no way in hell that Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi are ever going to agree with cutting taxes on the rich to impoverish the poor. So where does that leave us, considering that the egomaniacal sociopath in the middle doesn’t really understand either position.
It would seem that we are left with the solution that was given to us by the founders. They were less inclined to worry about political parties than they were to worry about solutions. And the solution to this mess can be answered at the polling place.
But isn’t the polling place the the same that has already given us the bunch of non-functional assholes who are currently running the country? Sure but it’s also the place that can replace them and there’s only one way to do t.
There are still enough intelligent people in public service in this country to come up with a logical, intelligent, fair tax plan that could drive the 2018 election. Unless Trump does something bizarre like dropping a nuclear bomb on North Korea, that election should be about healthcare, taxes and the infrastructure. . It is now the Democrats job and that of a few functional Republicans to make sure those are the issues. Right now it looks like the main health issue going forward, will be whether or not single payer can be achieved. Sure some Republicans are still striving to get rid of Obamacare but it really looks like the next move will be to expanding Medicare to take in the entire population or some such plan.
Infrastructure must be done. The nation’s roads, rails, airports and dams are falling apart but the money must come from taxes so that the government runs that program. Privatizing infrastructure turns it into another way for the rich to get richer and takes much needed money out of the program, just like letting insurance companies participate in healthcare steals from those who need medical care.
So the tax program becomes all-important. If it’s done right, it will drive healthcare and it will finance infrastructure – if its done right. It would be great if Mitch McConnell could be recruited to the side of the angels but his only thoughts on taxes revolve around how to get a cut for the rich. That means that the Democrats have to stop attacking Trump, stop fighting among themselves, stop debating why Hillary lost the election and get down to creating a tax plan that will get the job done and appeal to voters.
They haven’t been able to do it yet, but if the Democrats want to be anything but a mélange of nutcase liberals going into the future they have to do some serious organizing around a plan that cuts the corporate tax rate but eliminates the scam deductions, which will leave the corporations paying just about what they do now. It must increase the rate substantially on the very, very rich and somewhat on the plain rich. It must move the estate tax to a somewhat higher rate but with certain exemptions that keep it from disrupting businesses or causing family homes to be broken up and destroyed. It must eliminate many corporate tax deductions and most government subsidies that give money to industries that are harming our environment or already making huge profits. It must settle on a flexible national wage scale that takes into consideration where it is applied in relation to living costs in specific areas but establishes a floor whereby a family can exist comfortably on the wages paid to its head for a forty- hour week. It must simplify the filing system so that any person with a high school education can file his or her own taxes.
And before you star to whine about the cost to business; yes, that will mean that certain businesses will fail, but those borderline businesses because they don’t pay a living wage and don’t pay medical or other essential living costs, are already causing families to fail and that is a much greater harm because families cannot be replaced the way businesses can. The failure of a borderline business usually adds to the success of an already functioning business but that doesn’t hold true for families.
hese are just a few of the elements that must go into a new tax plan but just as important as what’s in it, is how it is sold and right now the Democrats or whoever else is out there, must create a plan and develop the people to sell it. Bernie Sanders almost pulled it off in the last election but now a charismatic young leader must emerge. Now the nation needs a figure like JFK, who understands what government needs and who has the personality to sell his views and those of his party. He must be able to clearly elucidate what the nation can become and how that can be achieved and he must be able to do it to a diverse electorate with various neds and various points of view. Without such a person we will just get more of the same and that means nothing but indecision and malfunction. We’ve already had more than enough of that.
Obama had the quiet charisma along with the honesty and intelligence to get him elected twice but neither time did he have the overwhelming plan or the toughness to get much done without both houses of congress. What we need now is a young FDR or more properly someone who we don’t have to compare to anyone else to appreciate. Let’s hope we get such a person, because if we don’t we will be in dire danger of getting another Trump