Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Fair trade, fair tax, fair deal...






"Because he can walk, chew gum, and a few other things at the same time, he is going to work on trade, get ready for Putin, keep the pressure on Iran, and make sure the North Korea deal stays on track. Oh yes - he will still have time for a round or two of golf this weekend." 




It seems the EU is coming over to see the Yanks. Why? To straighten out this trade mess. BTW - Donald Trump is SPOT ON when it comes to our trade with the EU. It sucks. It is anything but fair. In fact, when I started reading about some of the disparities, I was shocked it ever got to such a place. But it did, and our current President does not like it. "Fair trade or no trade" seems to be the new clarion call. 

Nobody seems to be capable of explaining why we have a 2 1/2% tariff on cars coming in from the EU, and they slap a 10% tariff on our cars going over there. However, our President does his homework, and is no patsy. He would love for the EU to agree there should be no tariffs on any car from either side. But if they refuse and want to keep the tariffs where they are, Trump has suggested he might ratchet our tariffs up on their cars by a factor of 8. Then while they put a 10% tariff on our cars, we will put a 20% tariff on theirs. 

Stay tuned. We are going to see this dance done over and over and over again. Mexico, Canada, China and others. Donald Trump is in his element. Honest people will agree with our President. We have allowed our trade imbalance to become obscene. He promised the American people when he was a candidate he would fix it, and fix it he will. 

As much as I would love to have President Trump get our screwed up trade imbalance squared away, I would love more for him to really put a fork in our criminal tax system. Wait a minute Bird! Have you been asleep at the switch? President Trump just gave us a huge tax cut! Yes he did, and I am thankful. But our tax system still is not fair. Way, way too many people pay nothing, and only a few at the top pay most of it. We need a fair tax - not a flat tax, a fair tax.

Why fair instead of an income tax? First off, we can take the politically driven IRS and put it out to pasture. Done, gone, finished. All our revenue would come from consumption. Everyone pays the same. If there is a 10% tax on a loaf of bread, everyone would pay that 10%. That is fair. No games, no deductions, no cheating, just a consumption tax.

Some think that both balanced trade and a fair tax might be a bridge too far for America. Maybe we will never get there - or maybe we will almost get there. I do know this. For the first time in a long time, we have a visionary - not a dreamer, but a visionary, leading our country. Walter Middy was a dreamer. That is all he ever did. Visionaries however, give us results. 

As the Democrats and the media keep nipping at the President's heels, he just continues to perform. And because he can walk, chew gum, and a few other things at the same time, he is going to work on trade, get ready for Putin, keep the pressure on Iran, and make sure the North Korea deal stays on track. Oh yes - he will still have time for a round or two of golf this weekend. 

4 comments:

  1. Putin's off til the Mueller probe is concluded, Trump couldn't find Iran on a map of the Persian Empire. There is no NORK deal and he always has time to play golf and watch Fox looking for his next WH briefing face.

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  2. Trying to remember my fair tax arguments......
    The Fair Tax could be unfair to those not earning an income, such as seniors. For the first generation of seniors, it would especially unfair as they paid income taxes all their lives and would have to start paying higher sales taxes as well. The advantage for seniors is that they wouldn't have to pay taxes on their withdrawals from savings.
    An agency would still be needed to send out the prebate checks, settle disputes and collect taxes from the states. It would also need to enforce the tax and go after cheaters. For example, business expenses that are used to create the final product would not be taxed. Small business owners could declare a purchase a business expense to avoid the sales tax. Compliance could become very expensive to monitor and enforce.
    Let's continue to have the rich pay for the programs for the poor.

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  3. Kudo's to Trump re: EU trade meeting and next steps. Good things could happen as long as EU keeps its mouth shut, preventing DJT from counter-punching and ruining everything.

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  4. New Deal for you wealthy Conservatives!
    Indexing Capital Gains! 86% of benefit goes to top 1%. Again.

    There is a grim irony in the fact that every prediction the Republicans have made about their tax cut has so far failed to come to fruition. They promised the tax cuts would inspire more business investment; no such increase has been seen. They insisted the official budget projections underestimated the growth effects of the cut, and that deficits would not rise. They are rising quickly.

    This is, in a microcosm, three decades of Republican economic policy. Republicans have fixated on the tax burden paid by the rich as the foundation of economic growth. They insisted Bill Clinton’s tax hike on the rich would cause a recession, that George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the rich would usher in prosperity, and that Obama’s reversal of those would end the recovery. None of those predictions came true. Lawrence Kudlow, Trump’s chief economist, has made the most fantastical, and fantastically wrong, of these promises. And Kudlow is the chief proponent of Trump’s plan to enact it by fiat. (If Trump does try the capital gains indexing gambit, he could be challenged in court.)

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