By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Nominally-conservative Internet new tycoon Matt Drudge is appropriate blaring the following headline this Tax Day 2016, Save Jerseyans: 45% of Americans pay no federal income tax.
Any Republican reading this post understands why that’s ominous news for American democracy (and the American economy). 77.5 million Americans with no skin in the game.
Any Republican, that is, expect for GOP front runner Donald Trump.
That’s the part Matt Drudge and the Trumpie legions won’t tell you.
The Orange Nightmare isn’t supporting a federal flat tax plan like his chief delegate rival, Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Nope. In fact, the Donald’s tax plan would actually add MORE Americans to the rolls of the untaxed.
Trump’s plan would specifically exempt single individuals earning less than $25,000 per year and married couples who jointly earn less than $50,000 from federal tax liability. That works out to around 75 million households according to his campaign. That’s right… the guy who’s most likely to lead the Party of Reagan in November will INCREASE the number of folks not paying taxes over what we saw during the Obama years.
Trump has also explicitly disavowed the flat tax. “The one problem I have with the flat tax is that rich people are paying the same as people that are making very little money,” he told Fox & Friends last summer. “And I think there should be a graduation of some kind. Because as you make a certain amount of money, I think you should have to graduate upward.”
So what about the so-called rich? Well, this is one area where Trump has been almost entirely consistent back in 1999 and in present day, he supports raising taxes on the wealthy. Back in the 90’s, he wanted a $5.7 trillion hike. Not billion: trillion. Today, he wants to increase well-heeled payers’ tax burdens by closing loop holes and as-of-yet fully explained additional mechanisms. As with Obamacare, we’ve got to vote for this guy first before we find out exactly what he plans to do!
Let review. Higher taxes for our country’s highest wealth and job producers. Millions of additional Americans being scrubbed from the tax roles. And guess who endorsed Trump’s plan? The female Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, appearing on The View:
There are a lot of places where he gets out and talks about important things. Donald Trump and I both agree that there ought to be more taxation of the billionaires, the people who are making their money on Wall Street.”
There you have it. Call the Donald a champion of political correctness and an elixir for D.C. dysfunction if you want, folks.
It’s your right to be wrong until he changes the libel laws.
Just don’t call him a fiscal conservative. Look at your 1040 after leaving the post office later today, compare the tax plans of the leading candidates and please, for God’s sake, vote with your head and not any other part of your anatomy.
_____
And yet…you would pull the lever for Kasich, eh R00ney?