Can a presidential candidate who promised better and cheaper medical insurance for everyone be believed after he subsequently promoted plans to take health insurance away from more than 20 million people and raise the cost for the rest of us?
Once again, the current president is saying “believe me” as he claims his proposal for massive tax cuts won’t personally benefit his own finances. Yet, his only tax return that we have seen, from 2005, would have reduced his taxes by 85 percent if his so-called tax reforms were in place at that time.
His tax scheme helps the richest 2 percent of the top 1 percent, by repealing the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax, by keeping the capital gains tax preference, by allowing companies that stashed their profits overseas to repatriate at a very low tax and by lowering the tax on “pass-through” income.
Ordinary people won’t benefit from these loopholes, but they will pay more because the scheme reduces the seven current tax rate categories to three, actually raising the tax rate for the previously lowest category.
The scheme also might end the few middle-class tax deductions: mortgage interest and state taxes. He brags that some will get a $1,000 tax break (woo-woo!), crumbs off the table while he and his “swampmates” take hundreds of thousands. The reduced government revenue will hurt ordinary people by cutting government services such as disaster response, health inspection, disease control and pollution enforcement.
Perhaps the clearest “tell” that this scheme is a hoax is Trump’s immediate threat to Senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana if he doesn’t support this ruse. If his scheme was so good, he wouldn’t need to lead with a threat.
Bruce Joffe
Piedmont, Calif.
