Trump is playing with fire and he thinks his supporters are too stupid to give a damn
Bloomberg Opinion) -- Donald Trump is dangerously close to becoming the first Republican president since George H.W. Bush to raise taxes. According to the Tax Foundation, if the tariffs already announced by Trump go into effect, they will amount to a $200 billion annual tax increase. That’s larger than the $165 billion average annual reduction in 2017’s Tax Cut and Jobs Act.
Bush’s brazen break with Republican orthodoxy, along with a sluggish economy and broken promises, made him a one-term president. If Trump’s not careful, he may join him.
In his 1988 campaign, Bush famously asked the public to read his lips when he promised “no new taxes.” While Bush had been Ronald Reagan’s vice president, he came from an earlier generation of moderate Republicans. Movement conservatives always had doubts about his fealty to their low-tax agenda.
As it turned out, those concerns were justified. In 1990, two years after a successful campaign based in part on a commitment to fight Congress’s attempts to raise taxes, Bush faced a rising deficit and a Congress reluctant to cut domestic spending. He caved. In June he announced that he was willing to accept a budget that not only cut defense spending but also included tax increases.
The final package included increases in both income and payroll taxes and went into effect in 1991. In the next year’s campaign, Bush had to deal with rising unemployment and withering criticism in both the primary and the general election over his decision to go back on his pledge.
Trump’s situation is not exactly analogous, of course. But his fate could be same. In his 2016 campaign, Trump promised that nearly every American would see a tax cut. He also pledged to renegotiate America’s “horrible trade deals” and reinvigorate U.S. manufacturing. When those negotiations failed and a trade war broke out, Trump assured Americans that trade wars were good and easy to win.
Bloomberg Opinion) -- Donald Trump is dangerously close to becoming the first Republican president since George H.W. Bush to raise taxes. According to the Tax Foundation, if the tariffs already announced by Trump go into effect, they will amount to a $200 billion annual tax increase. That’s larger than the $165 billion average annual reduction in 2017’s Tax Cut and Jobs Act.
Bush’s brazen break with Republican orthodoxy, along with a sluggish economy and broken promises, made him a one-term president. If Trump’s not careful, he may join him.
In his 1988 campaign, Bush famously asked the public to read his lips when he promised “no new taxes.” While Bush had been Ronald Reagan’s vice president, he came from an earlier generation of moderate Republicans. Movement conservatives always had doubts about his fealty to their low-tax agenda.
As it turned out, those concerns were justified. In 1990, two years after a successful campaign based in part on a commitment to fight Congress’s attempts to raise taxes, Bush faced a rising deficit and a Congress reluctant to cut domestic spending. He caved. In June he announced that he was willing to accept a budget that not only cut defense spending but also included tax increases.
The final package included increases in both income and payroll taxes and went into effect in 1991. In the next year’s campaign, Bush had to deal with rising unemployment and withering criticism in both the primary and the general election over his decision to go back on his pledge.
Trump’s situation is not exactly analogous, of course. But his fate could be same. In his 2016 campaign, Trump promised that nearly every American would see a tax cut. He also pledged to renegotiate America’s “horrible trade deals” and reinvigorate U.S. manufacturing. When those negotiations failed and a trade war broke out, Trump assured Americans that trade wars were good and easy to win.
