When you speak to the MAGA crowd, they insist China paid the tariffs. When pressed, they say this happened by China devaluing its currency. I’m not making this up, I’ve heard this explanation repeatedly on places like Breitbart.
His cultists are fawning over him by posting that his birthday is the same day as Flag Day and that proves “God does not make mistakes” and “he was born to save America”.
My new nickname for the convict: Scud. It’s short for Nehemiah Scudder.
June 14 is also the birthday of Che Guevara and Boy George. Were they also born to save America?
Well, one of them was. And it isn’t trump.
Just for the hell of it I decided to run the numbers to see what size tariffs would be required to replace income tax. Income tax brings in $2.6 Trillion, and there were $3.2 trillion in imports. So in order to replace it you would need tariffs of over 80%.
But now we can bring in the Laffer curve which is mostly irrelevant in terms of our current tax rates but which become dominant when we start talking about tariffs in this range. Since you nearly double the price of imports, the number of imports sold will drop by significantly more than half. So there really is no way to make up the revenue with tariffs.
Finally, if he tried the result would be other countries announcing obscene tarriffs on your goods in retaliation, and suddenlythe US would find itself completely economically isolated. Which is just the sort of thing that we try to do to other countries that we don’t like (e.g. Russia, Iran, North Korea).
TLDR: Trumps plan would basically be his self-imposing world wide sanctions on the US.
The Trump Sump.
MAGAts: “That’s so fucking stupid, we LOVE IT!”
What hits me about this is that this is the kind of “outside-the-box thinking” you see from outsiders trying to get noticed. The kind of things that, while they don’t have a chance of even being considered as legitimate proposals, they show he is willing to consider anything to help, and he isn’t afraid to suggest nonsense.
None of this applies to Trump, though. At this point, he has more experience at being President than Biden. He should be running on his proven successful policies, except for the simple matter that he has none. It’s like he’s saying, “But wait! I’ve got more crazy ideas we haven’t tried!”
What pisses me off, though, is that Trump is preventing any actual changes to our political system from being made because he is “sucking all the air out of the room” by preventing anything besides Biden or Trump from being considered.
What, like Carson’s flat tax that was woefully inadequate at his proposed rates? That would have a single mother with kids paying more while the millionaires and billionaires got huge breaks? That would simplify tax law because it wouldn’t have exceptions, except, oh wait, he realized it would and later created multiple variations on the theme.
Most of which would (surprise!) save more money for the wealthy and corporations and further pressure anyone below the ‘median’ income.
Like the people who HATED Obamacare, but were using, oh wait, state and federally funded healthcare, but since it didn’t use that label, felt it was fine.
It’s like if there was an easy fix, that didn’t break into the realms of offending/taking money from the corporate oligarchs and mega-wealthy who were bound and determine to torpedo such things, we wouldn’t have considered it.
Oh dammit, I need to calm down. I’m off for a drink before I rant all night.
I’m not sure so much that it is out of the box thinking as it is simplistic “common sense” thinking that seems like it might be a good idea unless you actually take a second or two to think about it. Its the same thinking that gives you build a wall across the southern border, Injecting bleach to kill Covid, and building airplanes out of the same material that they build the black boxes. The MAGAts love it because it they can actually understand it as opposed to actual workable policy that has all sorts of complications.
There are two parts to figuring out your income tax. First you have to figure out how much taxable income you made (which is really, really complicated), then you figure out how much tax you owe on it (which is very, very simple). A flat tax would take the simple part and make it a little bit simpler. Anyone who proposes a flat tax by saying it will be simpler is trying to pull the wool over your eyes.
Sure, you could eliminate the deductions, loopholes, depreciations, exemptions, credits, and all the other things that make figuring taxes so complicated, but there’s no reason at all why that has to be compbined with a single tax rate at all levels.
Wouldn’t it be amusing to see the magaflatearthers reaction to how the convicted felon’s tax plan would affect him and, of ocurse, his businesses and then compare that to how little much he and those businesses have actually paid in taxes?
This talk about “simplification” reminds me of those ads from “Americans For Prosperity” and the “simplified” budget they want Congress to pass. I’ve not read it, but it sounds suspicious.
The MAGAts:
“It’ll work, really! It’s trickle-down economics. You’ll see the benefits eventually. Hell, once Trump gets re-elected, I expect my hourly salary to increase and the price of Ford pickups to drop.”
Get real, buddy. You know that your salary is only going to stay the same, and the price of Ford pickups will increase. “Trickle-down economics” only ever existed in a former president’s dreams.
Wait until someone convinces (read: says it’s a good thing within 1/4 second of complimenting him) that a presidential line-item veto is the way the federal budget should work.
The convict opened his mouth and lied again (should I say again or should I say still), this time about Nancy Pelosi. (Link goes to Yahoo.)
Trump privately met with Washington’s Republican lawmakers in what was labeled a policy meeting, where House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) hoped to lay out the party’s legislative vision for 2025 should the former president retake the White House.
At the meeting, Trump called Pelosi’s daughter a “whacko” who allegedly told him that her mother and the former president would “be perfect together” in different circumstances, according to reporting from Punchbowl News. The candidate did not appear to specify which of Pelosi’s daughters he was referring to.
One of Pelosi’s daughters uttered the truth, though. (Quote from above link; ebmedded link is to Xitter.)
“Speaking for all 4 Pelosi daughters — this is a LIE,” Christine Pelosi posted on social media. “His deceitful, deranged obsession with our mother is yet another reason Donald Trump is unwell, unhinged and unfit to step foot anywhere near her — or the White House.”
While the convict was in a meeting with his worshippers members of our government, he, of course, was focused on one of the most important issues facing our country and our world. (Link goes to Yahoo, as do the embedded links.)
In his first visit to Capitol Hill since before the January 6 insurrection, Trump ranted and raved, lasering in on key issues such as how Representative Nancy Pelosi is too old for him to date, slamming Wisconsin—the host of the Republican National Convention in July—as a “horrible city,” and, somehow most surprisingly, obsessing over Taylor Swift’s alleged support for President Joe Biden.
“Why would she endorse this dope?” Trump wondered, according to CNN’s Melanie Zanona. “He doesn’t know how to get off a stage.”
Swift has not endorsed anyone for the 2024 presidential election yet.
Days earlier, reports emerged that Trump had mused about Swift’s looks during a November 2023 conservation with Variety co–editor in chief Ramin Setoodeh.
“I think she’s beautiful—very beautiful!” Trump said at the time. “I find her very beautiful. I think she’s liberal. She probably doesn’t like Trump. I hear she’s very talented. I think she’s very beautiful, actually—unusually beautiful!”
And this, folks, is the person millions of our fellow Americans believe should be in charge of the executive branch of our government.
I wonder if Taylor Swift is prepared to take one for the team.
ThelmaLou! I would not allow it!
I’ll stand between her and him. He’ll never see her behind my almost 68 year old self.
I hope she will endorse and encourage her fans to vote blue. Maybe trump will have a conniption fit and finally lose what little is left of his brain.
Keep your shirt on. It’s not like I meant for it to really happen. It would be a ruse, a con. Conning the con man.
Okay, never mind. Bad idea. Back to the drawing board.
Big Cypress swamp is the largest in Florida and it’s already been made a Natural Preserve. I wonder if the name change could be made by Executive Order.