While Houston is underwater, suffering from the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, Trump flew to Missouri to deliver a tax reform speech based on principles he once alleged caused the destruction of America.
Richard Trumka had it exactly right today. He said the White House is filled with racists and Wall Streeters.
After Charlottesville, the racists won the day, but today it was the Wall Streeters' turn.
Trump said, "In 1986, Ronald Reagan led the world by cutting our corporate tax rate to 34%. That was below the average rate for developed countries at the time. Everybody thought that was a monumental thing that happened but then, under this pro-America system, our economy boomed it just went -- it just went beautifully, right through the loop the middle class thrived and median family income increased."
It was so beautiful!
The Hill recapped Trump's proposal, which lacked any real substance or numbers to back it up.
Trump laid out four principles he would like to see in a tax-code rewrite: A tax code that’s simple and easy to understand, a globally competitive tax code, tax relief for middle-class families and bringing back trillions of dollars in money held overseas.
What we have here is your typical Paul Ryan gobbledygook:
Greg Sargent via The Morning Plum had it exactly right:
In reality, what we will actually hear at this speech is the death rattle of whatever pretensions to genuine economic populism Trump has ever harbored, if any. Trump will make it official that this rhetoric is merely a disguise for the same old trickle-down economics we have heard for decades — confirming that his economic agenda is in sync with the very same GOP economic orthodoxy that he so effectively used as a foil to get elected.
Trump and his Rudy Giuliani troop of hucksters told as many lies as they could during the campaign and the media and the AM hate talk radio crowd lapped it all up.
Ann Coulter tweeted, This is the worst, most tone-deaf speech @realDonaldTrump has ever given. Jeb! had better ideas.
I beg to differ. All of Trump's speeches have been horrific.
Here's where he told Joan Rivers that Reagan's tax cuts were a catastrophe in 1991.
Trump: "What caused the Savings and Loan crisis other than incompetence and various other things was the 1986 tax law change, it was a disaster.! It took all of the incentives away from the investors. It was a disaster."
Trump claimed America lost hundreds of billions of dollars because of Reagan's tax law change.
Drain the swamp, indeed.
