Republicans and especially conservatives have been screaming for decades about the horrors of the federal debt. Now they are purposely creating debt to give massive tax breaks to corporations and the already wealthy.
U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a prime mover behind forcing no Medicare drug discounts, is now tasked to write the GOP’s secretive 1,000-page tax plan. To ram it through by Thanksgiving (theirs) that will give about 50 percent of the benefits of so called tax reform to the 1 percent; and provide Trump’s family alone with an estimated $757 million tax cut.
Tax reforms’ projected total cost is $5.5 trillion, and it assumes $4 trillion in savings from elsewhere. Those include deep cuts to Medicare and healthcare for the poor (half of Trump voters fit that category).
The Republican plan will add at least $1.5 trillion to the national debt by their own measurement; which can run upwards of $2.4 trillion.
Treasury Secretary and “Foreclosure King” Steven Mnunchin says that simple growth in the economy will pay for everything; maybe.
The procedure is called “dynamic scoring.” Not real money, a score. The tax cuts guaranteed, and the income growth a speculative score assumption.
Just like former Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell and the conservative Republican Legislature that exploded Alaska state spending, instead of saving the extra revenue for the future, while giving away billions in revenue (timed just before the “surprise, surprise” price crash).
Even now those same legislators fight endlessly to not fix the massive cash rebates to oil companies they tucked into SB 21.
But I have to give Trump and the GOP credit where credit is due.
They have done a great job of galvanizing their base to allow them to rig the American system against their own supporters and selling them the big con.
Best of all, they get to do this by further filling the pockets of their wealthiest donors by grinding their own middle class voters under foot, cutting their healthcare, destroying their pensions, with a specials emphasis on crushing the very people their Lord demands they must help — the poor.
Trump says the average American will get $4,000 in their paycheck from Republican tax reform; sometime. Remember, his home is near the Brooklyn Bridge, which he will make you a great deal on.
Spare me the over dramatized false political courage of retiring U.S. Sens. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, and Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, who have denounced their president. They voted to cut heathcare for tens of millions, and are still fully on board to deliver tax cuts that will explode the debt.
And many who should stand up to act in the public’s real interest have become little more than wiggling jelly.
Is this going to affect me personally? No really. Everything about money, economics and investing is about the time horizon. I’m a 70-year old white guy, and I’ll be dead in about 10 years anyway.
Do I feel bad about what I honestly believe will hurt the future of my wife, many friends, nieces, nephews, and their children — absolutely. But I can’t help them when most of their elders, friends and their peers, continually insist on shooting themselves in the feet — and then reload.
Trump and his GOP know exactly what they are doing. They are ruthlessly economically self-serving, will not countenance any opposition, while they wrap themselves in a blanket of pious religion.
How many Americans self-righteously have boasted that they could never understand how Germans could follow their leaders into WW II to absolute ruin. Speculate no more.
Further, the massive increase in future deficits set off by tax reform will force even deeper cuts in Medicare and social security, and will pit younger voters against the aged.
That’s the real strategy end game. No conspiracy, just simple economics.
Just like Alaska — massive spending increases by “conservative” Parnell and the Legislature, drain the revenues with SB 21, spend down the reserves, set everyday Alaskans against each other as savings evaporate.
With the time value of money added to the tax cuts, Ivanka, Trump Jr., and Eric won’t even thank you for the billions President Trump and the GOP added to their inheritance through tax reform.
• Anselm Staack is a CPA and an attorney who has been an Alaska resident for over 43 years. He was the Treasury Comptroller for Alaska under Gov. Jay Hammond and worked directly on the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation. My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire.
