Odd ain't it, that a sizeable contingent of americans will vote for a guy who floats on all the stuff they're angry about, yet he can convince them he's an outsider; a "1%er" who's gonna stick it to the man for them. Incredible.
That is precisely what astounds me to some extent. It doesn't insofar as I know the man is a marketing genius...All people who make "big money" by licensing a brand are, but sometimes there's "there" there, and other times there is not. The thing with Trump is that time and time again we see the man has connived his way to "winning."
People say he "tells it like it is." He does not. He, like every outstanding marketer, tells it like he wants the consumer, in this case voters, to see it. When it comes to marketing, "how it is" is irrelevant; what is relevant is that the consumer feel like it is as the marketer/seller says it is.
Think of a typical marketing campaign. What is the message? In some way, shape or form, it is essentially that the product is "the best thing since sliced bread." Now think about how many of those products you've actually closely scrutinized and found out they are (1) not the best things since sliced bread, (2) no better than a competing product, (3) worse than the alternative, or (4) the features and benefits they've touted don't actually produce a tangible result to you the buyer.
Well, Trump's message is no different; however, unlike most services and product marketers, one cannot "try before you buy." The man has zero prior public governance experience we can look to. And yet what we do have portends disaster. The man has used "every trick in the book" to avoid delivering on his side of deals. Hell, the man has all but bragged about paying no federal income taxes, and to boot, he has no intention of making that be the circumstance for "average people," yet if there's anyone who deserves to pay no taxes, it is "average people." And why is that? Because we already know that the majority of the government's revenue doesn't come from "average people."
Now look at
Trump's current tax proposal.
Brackets & Rates for Married-Joint filers
(Brackets for single filers are ½ of these amounts)
Taxable income: Rate
Less than $75,000 12%
More than $75,000 but less than $225,000 25%
More than $225,000 33%
Only the most basic aspects of it is shown above. I discussed the rates above and additional details of his plan (from the perspective of a CPA more so than that of an economist) in the "income inequality" section of my post here:
http://www.usmessageboard.com/posts/15399131/. Read the post and you'll see why his proposal is grossly inequitable for "average people."
FWIW, his proposal would be great for my wallet, but I'm not an average earner by any stretch of the imagination, and I'm a business owner not an employee. I just don't want to live in a nation full of pissed off "average people" -- more pissed off than they are now -- suffering from what is sure to be most extreme case of buyer's remorse ever observed. Quite frankly, for me, it comes down to "do unto others as I'd have them do unto me." There's just no way in hell, were I an average earner in the U.S. that I'd want to live with the inequity of Trump's tax plan because it's more, vastly more inequitable than are the current tax provisions. It practically ensures that folks like me --
folks on the low to low middle rungs of the 1% -- and folks wealthier than I will, at most, pay taxes at 15%, and most folks in my situation will pay at 10%. How can that constitute "doing right" by our countrymen who earn, what, about 10-15% of what we do? It can't!
Click on the link in the preceding paragraph and you'll see that entry into the 1% doesn't take "Wall St." and "CEO" earnings. It's what doctors, lawyers, accountants, consultants, reasonably successful small business owners, and more make, and I'm not even talking about the most senior of them. "Rank and file" professionals earn that much. We don't look (to the man on the street) like the mega rich folks about whom one hears of in the news...for obvious reasons...we aren't that well off. But make no mistake, when the accountant, doctor, or attorney, for example, who last year paid $400K in taxes will under Trump's proposal pays something less than $200K, s/he's going to notice it. Now consider the fellow who last year earned $80K and paid $8K in taxes finds himself paying more than that. Even if it's just $50 more, he's going to be furious.
The "Wall St-ers" and CEOs are the folks we hear about in the news, but they aren't the bulk of the 1%. Hell, they don't even comprise "a lot" of the 1%. They merely serve as the most egregious illustrations of the advantages everyone in the 1% have and that makes them good "whipping boys" and "strawmen."
So what is the impact of what Trump's tax policies on folks in the lower rungs of the 1%? Basically to push them out of the 1% so that the controlling interest the 1% have is consolidated among an even smaller group of individuals. He knows, just as I do, that folks like me who are on or near the bottom of the 1% are numerous and more likely to favor tax policy that favors "average people" because, for the most part, we consider ourselves to be "average people," who through our hard work happen to earn enough to be comfortable.
But what's the big difference? People like me don't look at money as the determinant between who's won and who's lost. People like me don't look at the hairdresser or the administrative assistant and consider them to be losers. Trump and the people in his cohort do. Hell, they consider many folks in the lower half of the 1% also to be losers. Quite simply, in Trump's mind, money is the scorecard.
So you tell me. If money is the scorecard, have all the folks who haven't amassed $30M, or $15M or even just $2M, winners or losers? Now think about how you feel about losers in general. Are you of a mind to do anything for them? Would you sooner just see them disappear and let the winners get on with playing "for real ?" Think about that and you'll understand how Trump and his cohort view.
As that applies to taxes, it's quite simple. One doesn't give tax breaks to losers because they have not demonstrated that they'd do much of anything "useful" with the money so as to grow their and the nation's fortunes. What one does is give the "losers" just enough money so they'll run out and spend it and a little bit more on the new things one and the other "real" players have made available in the marketplace. One does that so that it's possible to tell which of the "real" players have won and which have lost any given contest in the overall battle for supremacy within a given playing field (in an industry, in a geographic market, in a nation, overall, etc.).
Knowing that is another part of why I don't support Trump.
