There are three things modern, Trump-connected conservatives love to pretend about themselves:
1.) They are against taxes;
2.) They are against big government;
3.) They follow the original, stated principles of the U.S. Constitution.
Each of these claims is completely false.
It is surprisingly easy to point out how clearly they fail to follow their stated intentions. We’ll expose each of these myths in the coming days. In today’s article, we’ll deal with the item at the top of our list.
Myth #1 – Trump and His Minions Are Against Taxes
Trump’s minions claim to be against taxes. In reality, they adore taxes, in both number and severity. They openly champion the litany of tariff taxes now swamping the American consumer.This scheme is the brainchild of their leader, Donald Trump.
They did not create tariffs. But swamping the modern taxpayer behind an ever-increasing list of tariff taxes – only to crow about how they “love the inflation” that list brings into every American’s life – shows they even enjoy swamping average-income Americans with taxes they simply cannot afford.
And in any real sense, these tariffs are taxes. The tariffs are in essence consumption taxes, since they are government-mandated additional costs on items that are used up over a relatively short period of time. And these taxes are notoriously regressive – that is, they are especially tough on people who are not wealthy, since such people must spend a greater fraction of their income on such items.
The reality? Conservatives only hate taxes on wealthy people. Their record of the last 46 years reveals that their so-called “tax breaks” were activities that primarily reduced taxes for millionaires and billionaires.
A simple Google search uncovers analyses of conservative tax activity performed by the Tax Policy Center and the Penn Wharton Budget Model. The investigations reveal that federal corporate rate cuts and personal income tax reductions primarily have benefitted well-to-do corporations and high-income households.
And don’t think that everyone else gets at least some break. Any decrease in federal taxes simply shifts the tax burden to local areas. Those areas tend to place a greater share of the tax burden on people who are not wealthy.
The only other option is to cut necessary investments in our infrastructure, schools and people.
That’s not a plan – that’s a slow death by suicide. It starves the country – and most of the people in it – to give extra benefits to people who have already been soundly rewarded by the way things currently work in this country.
About a hundred years ago, a major labor leader named Big Bill Haywood stated how that policy really works:
“If one man has a dollar he didn’t work for, some other man worked for a dollar he didn’t get.”
That’s why the conservatives are hurting now. Rewarding a few at the expense of the working majority is an expensive business. And most Americans are realizing they just can’t afford that policy anymore.
