Posted on 01/24/2016 1:38:39 PM PST by Hojczyk
Tax Plan. Trump’s tax plan is certainly conservative. He proposes lowering the top tax bracket to 25 percent, drops the capital gains tax to 20 percent, dumps the death tax, and drops the corporate rate to 15 percent.
Our analysis finds that the plan would reduce federal revenues by $11.98 trillion over the next decade. However, it also would improve incentives to work and invest, which could increase gross domestic product (GDP) by 11 percent over the long term.
That’s different from his past positions on taxes, which include fighting the flat tax and proposing a wealth tax that would force owners to liquidate their property to pay taxes every year.
Trade. Trump is for international tariffs, including an extraordinarily heavy tariff on Chinese goods, in the mistaken belief that this somehow helps the American economy. Tariffs certainly benefit protected sectors, but they hurt American consumers and destroy American purchasing power. Trump also wants to leave mandatory union dues alone – or at least he hasn’t commented differently on the issue for several years.
Guns. Trump has become progressively more pro-Second Amendment over time. His website states: “The Second Amendment to our Constitution is clear. The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed upon. Period.â€
So, there you have it: Trump’s mixed record on conservatism, even at present, belies the notion that he sees eye-to-eye with the Tea Party. Actually, Trump is far more populist than conservative — which means he has appeal to blue-collar Democrats, but also that he may not reliably stand by conservative principles in office. In fact, given his repeated position switching, the safe bet is that anything he says today will changed based on convenience. That should not encourage any conservative thinking of Trump in the primaries.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Bottom line, Trump is conservative enough for the times. He can win a general election. Now wouldn’t that be nice?
“Is Trump smart enough to run as a conservative in the Republican primary? yes”
But what does he run as in the general?
The best Conservative positions, most Conservative positions on taxes are not primarily concerned with the tax rates, as far the levels they are at now, as they are with the whole tax system of tax preferences and using the tax preferences for (1) pleasing crony capitalists, (2) economic engineering, (3) social engineering and wealth redistribution. Those conditions makes Trumps tax plan less conservative than some others, and others, like Carson’s would grow the economy more, without leaving all the loopholes Trump would leave in.
Second - labor is not less important, from a Conservative standpoint than capital. Being conservative is not wanting to be less friendly, tax wise, to capital formation, but it is crony-capitalism and not particularly conservative to think labor should be taxed more than capital formation. If it is an “incentive” to capital formation to not tax capital formation twice, or tax it too high, it is an “incentive” to work to do the same on taxes on labor. The Conservative position would attempt to tax ALL income, and all forms of it equally. Trump’s tax plan is more crony capitalist than Conservative. He’d jigger the rates, and all the loopholes, preferences, social and economic engineering (the whole “progressive” tax agenda) would be left in.
I am all for Trump’s main stance, stop illegals.
But, then what?
He has said he will not touch entitlements.
Politically, a smart move, but realistically, they are unsustainable.
We need to insure people will leave the entitlement programs, and get to work.
Stopping illegals, I am on board with 100%.
If we do not reform entitlements, we will just increase H1B and H2B to cover our lack of workforce.
I do not want that to happen.
Trump is also a clown who does what his corporate overlords tell him to do.
I don’t believe he is going to build a wall. I think he is willing to say whatever he needs to say in order to get the nomination. In fact I think he will advance the Democrat cause of amnesty. Not only has he rhetorically supported Democrats and their causes, he has donated money to their causes. Trump has used their statist tactics such as abusing eminent domain for his own benefit and continues to support such tactics.
There is no shortage of high skilled labor in the USA.
Agreed, if they will actually take the jobs, which is my point.
There is person for every job in the USA at the right price point.
And the immigration section was wrong. Ted wanted to increase H1Bs.
Trump is talking the talk, unlike, say, Bloomberg who didn’t have to when he bought the nomination for mayor.
Cruz changed his stance, calling my for a halt to it, so the abuses could be stopped.
The right price point is the issue.
It has to pay enough, or we have to have significant entitlement reform, to make it worthwhile for some of these people to go to work.
Both things, reform and wages, work for me.
"That’s different from his past positions on taxes, which include fighting the flat tax and proposing a wealth tax that would force owners to liquidate their property to pay taxes every year."
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponents Argument
Please note that Sen. Cruz, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Mr. Shaprio were all indoctrinated in Harvard Law School. This is evidenced by the observation that none of these constitutional ”experts” seem to be aware of the clarification by a previous generation of state sovereignty-activist justices that Congress is prohibited from appropriating taxes in the name of state power issues, essentially any issue that Congress cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.
”Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” - Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
Based on the Courts statement above, here is a rough approximation of how much property owners and other taxpayers should be paying Congress annually to perform its Section 8-limited power duties.
Given that the plurality of clauses in Section 8 deal with defense, and given that the Department of Defense budget for 2015 was $500+ billion, I will generously round up the $500+ billion figure to $1 trillion (but probably much less) as the annual price tag of the federal government to the taxpayers.
In other words, the corrupt media, including Obama guard dog Fx News, should not be reporting multi-trillion dollar annual federal budgets without mentioning the Supreme Courts clarification of Congresss limited power to appropriate taxes in budget discussions.
Remember in November!
When patriots elect Trump, or whatever conservative they elect, they need to also elect a new, state sovereignty-respecting Congress that will work within its Section 8-limited powers to support the new president.
Also consider that such a Congress would probably be willing to fire state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices.
I do not think Trump is a traitor, and I have supported Cruz since his senate run in 2012.
Agreed, whoever get’s the election, we should always push for states rights
“Small government values” is a LOSER proposition because most people don’t really want it. We want a government with a kick-ass military and one that will get busy and deport illegals. Build a wall. Maybe do some other things with infrastructure too, like roads and power grid. Set up big tariffs and use some of the money to lower a lot of other taxes. Defend our economy and our jobs. We do not want an end to social security and medicare either, at least until the economy gets out of the hospital where it was put by the last few decades of globalist policies by both parties.
If anyone can’t understand this, and just wants to stay with the old slogans, then YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH.
All these conservative purists who tell the rest of us what is, and what is not, conservative.
Sick of them.
Ted Cruz’ 16% VAT tax is not conservative. It’s a liberal’s wet dream.
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