# How has the Trump administration negatively affected you? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 24, 2019, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004 "2019-04-24T17:33:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/41 "2019-04-25T01:15:33Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Am I the only one in this thread that took a hit on my taxes this year? It wasn’t even a small hit…my taxes (Federal) went up substantially. My taxes went up but they probably would have gone up in a Clinton administration. I don’t know how to score that. Frankly, my taxes probably should have gone up. It’s just that the taxes of people richer than me should have gone up more instead of going down. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/42 "2019-04-25T01:15:49Z")
My taxes went way up, because I live in a targeted (non-Trump voting) state, but I made quite a bit of money on the stock market. On the other hand, my blood pressure reached medicable levels from reading the news every morning. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveroptic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiveroptic/32/8257_2.png) [@Fiveroptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveroptic)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/43 "2019-04-25T01:17:24Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Am I the only one in this thread that took a hit on my taxes this year? It wasn’t even a small hit…my taxes (Federal) went up substantially. Nope. I paid 300+ hundred bucks more in 2018 Federal taxes than I did last year even though our combined incomes were almost five thousand dollars less. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/44 "2019-04-25T01:26:33Z")
I voted yes. My reasons were outlined in this [thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=21389828#post21389828) last December: > [@How has Former President Trump pissed you off today?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-former-president-trump-pissed-you-off-today/777640/5490): > > The stock market has dropped about 10% in the last few weeks, with the [worst December since the Great Depression](https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/18/investing/stocks-worst-december-since-great-depression/index.html). > > Normally, I don’t worry too much about the ups and downs of the market, because I’m in it for the long haul for my retirement accounts. > > However, that’s not the case for my son’s 529 plan, which holds the money I need to pay his college tuition. I had just enough in the account to cover his last semester at college, but it’s dropped in value by about 10% over the last month. I have to cash this out to pay the bill that is due, so I won’t get the benefit of any recovery in the market (i.e. my losses are now being locked in). Worse, I now have to make up for the shortfall in order to cover my son’s tuition bill by pulling money out of my savings. > > All because our country is being run by the village idiot. :mad: > > P.S. Can’t wait to do my taxes for this year, when I find out how badly I’ve been screwed by last year’s tax bill (which eliminated most of my SALT deductions). Regarding my postscript, my federal taxes did indeed go up considerably, so I’m pissed about that, too. And because the Trump administration screwed up the new tax withholding tables so badly (reportedly to showcase the new lower taxes that everyone was supposedly getting), I had to come up with over **$5,000** last week to make up the shortfall. :mad: It would be one thing if my higher taxes were helping to pay down the national debt or to help provide more people with health coverage, but that’s not the case. Instead most of the “benefit” of the tax “reform” bill is going into the pockets of large corporations and the extremely wealthy – along with increasing the deficit. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/45 "2019-04-25T05:12:57Z")
Tangibly? No. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/46 "2019-04-25T13:01:44Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Am I the only one in this thread that took a hit on my taxes this year? It wasn’t even a small hit…my taxes (Federal) went up substantially. No, you’re not the only one. My taxes also went up overall, which is why I voted Yes in the poll. So apparently I am not one of the rich the SDMB would have me believe the tax cut was aimed at. Or more probably the tax cut no longer shielded me (as much) from the fact that I live in a high-tax blue state. I understand the desire of the poll to limit responses to what affects people personally - otherwise it would fill up (yet again) with the usual rants. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/47 "2019-04-25T13:14:25Z")
I said “yes”, although it’s really minor. Basically the constant barrage of BS from the Oval Office, the weird, half-baked and/or hateful policies of the administration, and the constant coverage and commentary by the news media and everybody else in entertainment have cast a sort of pall over everything. The only other time I can remember there being such a sort of negative overall vibe on things would have been the late 1970s to mid-1980s, and then there was a sort of perfect storm of economic issues, Cold War fear, issues in the Middle East (Iran hostages, embassy bombings, skirmishes with Libya, hijackings, etc…) Things seemed negative. But now it’s wholly due to one man, and his gang of morally and ethically bankrupt partisan supporters who are willing to overlook this stuff and kick our democratic processes and norms in the balls simply for the sake of partisan motives. So yeah, it’s affected me negatively in that regard. In any other terms, it hasn’t, since I’m an upper middle class middle aged white man- if anything, his administration has been beneficial to me and my family in that sense. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/48 "2019-04-25T14:42:28Z")
I work at a university. Our university has much fewer international students which has impacted our budget. I work on capital projects and construction costs have increased greatly so we are getting less done with our limited budgets. I have a couple friends that are federal contract workers. They lost a significant amount of income during the govt shutdown. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/49 "2019-04-25T16:48:08Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > You honestly think that whatever policies are implemented now are going to personally cause YOU physical harm to the point where you die? I think that it’s theoretically possible that food production could be impacted within my lifetime. Even if I end up being one of those who could still afford the reduced supply of nutritious foodstuffs, that’s the sort of thing that can cause a form of societal unrest that can be hazardous to one’s health. [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/50 "2019-04-25T16:51:49Z")
Seems like a stretch, but okay. ---
**Author:** ![Scribble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scribble/32/3317_2.png) [@Scribble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scribble)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/51 "2019-04-25T23:08:15Z")
Back in February, I posted in a thread about how the Trump administration has changed my life. Those changes were harmful to me. Some of those changes affected me more directly than others did, but they still harmed me. [https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21501428&postcount=57](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21501428&postcount=57) ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/52 "2019-04-26T01:47:24Z")
I live in California. My tax rate went up this year. ---
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/53 "2019-04-26T04:22:46Z")
I have much less free time. I’ve had a landscaping company here in southern California for 30 years, Business has always been very busy and successful even when the economy has a downturn. But I have never seen the amount of work available to us that I see today. Everyone seems to have a job and plenty of money to spend. Most jobs don’t even require a bid. People tell me what they want and don’t seem to care what it costs. They just want it done, the sooner the better. This has allowed me to raise prices and my customers don’t blink an eye. Trump’s economy has been a huge boast to my bottom line and the bottom line for the people around where I live. So, like I said, the negative is that I don’t have as much time to surf as I would like, but one has to “make hay while the sun shines”. Heaven help us if Sanders or Biden gets in. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/54 "2019-04-26T04:47:15Z")
His administration’s travel procedures made business-related travel more complicated and nerve-wracking for several of my colleagues than it previously had been. My clients’ supply chains have been affected; this has led both to people being more nervous at work and to shit flowing through said chain from both ends. The factory I visited in the US a couple of years back and where a bunch of Catholics (and a Muslim who wasn’t in the room at the time) were informed that the orange shitgibbon was going to MAGA and save her from the waves of dangerous Muslim and Catholic immigrants still has a Facebook, so it appears that it’s still open. The steel tariffs had a direct and negative impact on their profitability; rumor from the Finance people was that they’d stay open at least as a finishing center so stuff could be sold as (last step) Made in America, but that they were on the verge of being non-profitable even before the tariffs. Brexit has had much more of a direct impact, but then, I’m from Spain, don’t live in the US and do a lot of business with the UK. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/55 "2019-04-26T13:04:37Z")
I did not vote because I reject the conditions of the poll. I prefer to live in a democratic nation and believe the incumbent is trying to install himself as a fascist dictator. Yes, that will affect me and all my descendants. In my opinion, this outweighs the trivial adverse impacts that the OP would deem acceptable. I could with some justification vote yes on the grounds that I lost the ability to itemize deductions and very likely paid more in taxes. ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/56 "2019-04-27T02:09:21Z")
I voted Yes b/c he has taken money out of my pockets by your measurement. I would have gotten a tax refund in any other year, but this one I had to pay. And his full diaper temper tantrum of a shutdown kept me from starting a job in February b/c background checks couldn’t be completed by contractors who insisted on being paid for their work. I expected to be into a 2nd project w/ this job but I’m still waiting, paycheck-less (from that job) for the 1st to start in June if I’m lucky. I could have been putting that money back into the economy at a much higher rate. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/57 "2019-04-27T02:43:54Z")
If you don’t want to count that if John McCain hadn’t voted against him, Donald Trump would be directly responsible for both my daughter and my son’s not-yet wife losing their health insurance, then your poll is worthless. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/58 "2019-04-27T12:09:40Z")
The government shutdown directly affected me even by your clearly biased set of conditions, so I voted yes. I would have voted ‘yes’ anyway based off of his supreme court appointees, war on the environment, war on education, war on healthcare, war on dignity in government, and war on trans people even if that wasn’t the case, as (like others have pointed out) I’m not a sociopath and actually care about people that aren’t me, and am not a head-in-the-sand short-sighted person who doesn’t consider long-term and general harm to affect me. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2019, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/59 "2019-05-11T04:30:20Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Serious question - do you own this company? If not, have you had your salary reduced or bonuses reduced? Oops. I should have checked back here sooner. I don’t own the company, but I’m on a 60% salary, 40% commission base. My commission is down, based on reduced profits, caused at least partially by increased costs. I also am guessing that when we get to the end of the quarter, my bonus will be smaller, for the same reasons. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2019, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004/60 "2019-05-11T05:25:06Z")
I voted yes. My taxes went up substantially due to the limitation of deductiblity of SALT. (And yes I figured them using last year’s Turbo Tax as well so I know this is true). That enough for a yes, but I’ll add a couple of others. One student I was working with particularly closely could not get back to the university for several months due to the “Muslim” ban. The price of the new refrigerator we were going to install in the remolded kitchen had a marked price jump. We were told this was due to tariffs on steel. Whether that is literally true, it is reason the company gave so the tariffs “empowered” them. The constant news barrage about his tweets, etc. has certainly negatively affected my mental health, and my A1C (diabetes tendency indicator) has gone up a lot. Did he cause it? Who knows, but he sure didn’t help. If you need a direct monetary cost, I cut back on my teaching and therefore my paycheck. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-the-trump-administration-negatively-affected-you/833004.md?page=4)