Trump flip-flop list (updated):
Minimum wage
Self funding
Tax plan
Wall
Amnesty
Muslim ban
End Obamacare
Pro-Life
2A
Minimum wage
Self funding
Tax plan
Wall
Amnesty
Muslim ban
End Obamacare
Pro-Life
2A
Man oh Manischewitz, he's just going right down the list like there's no tomorrow, isn't he? How long has he been presumptive "Republican" nominee? Forty-eight hours? Christ on a crutch, his "Democrat-ization" of the GOP is metastasizing at a breakneck pace:
Trump put out a tax plan last year that included major cuts to income, estate and business taxes for the ultra-wealthy along with less generous cuts for the middle class. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimated his plan would cut the tax bill for the top 1% of earners by about $275,000 a year on average and for the top 0.1% by $1.3 million. The overall cost would be $9.5 trillion over a decade…
But that was the old Trump. Pressed by CNBC on Thursday as to how he could simultaneously brand himself as a populist who will take on wealthy elites [of which he himself is a charter member] while proposing sweeping tax cuts for billionaires, Trump backed away from his plan.
“I am not necessarily a huge fan of that,” he said. “I am so much more into the middle class who have just been absolutely forgotten in our country.”
Trump described his tax proposal, which was the most detailed policy paper he put out in the campaign, as merely a starting point for a future deal. [emphases added]
So it was all BS, in other words. Which we already knew - I believe I dismissed it long ago as a sop to the Club For Growth to get them off his back - that would evaporate the instant he clinched the nomination. And I was right.
But here's something you may have noticed already: If he's already backing off of that tax cut plan, doesn't that constitute negotiating against himself? Why disclose months in advance that his plan is only a "starting point" for "future negotiations"? Hasn't he already conceded those negotiations by publicly telegraphing his intentions? Is this the master "art of the deal"? And doesn't this nakedly telegraph the kind of "deals" he'd be making with Chucky Schumer and Nancy Pelosi?
Note the next item on the list above, and then read this quote:
Donald Trump’s vow to round up and deport all of America’s [illegal alien]s if he is elected president could shrink the economy by a[nother] 2%, according to a study to be released on Thursday by conservative think tank the American Action Forum.
The research adds to concerns about the "Republican" presidential nominee’s policy proposals, which range from tearing up international trade agreements to building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.
About 6.8 million of the more than [thirty] million [alien]s living in the United States illegally are employed, according to government statistics. Removing them would cause a slump of $381.5 billion to $623.2 billion in private sector output, the Washington-based non-profit said in its analysis.
Removing them is also a practical and political impossibility, but leave that aside for the moment. What the AAF study reveals is that there would be a significant economic cost to restoring immigration laws, national sovereignty, and border security. Whether that cost is considered worth it could be debated, but the point here is that Trump has grotesquely overpromised on something on which he cannot remotely deliver. Deport all illegals for free! Build a wall and (somehow) force Mexico to pay for it! But he has not revealed that there will be a significant cost involved to his idiot followers, just like the "establishment" politicians he's had so gosh-darn much fun ripping and insulting for the past ten and a half months. "Money for nothing and chicks for free," as it were. Eat all the cheeseburgers and Hagan-Daas you want and never gain a pound. The entitlement mentality. And when the "bill" came do, would he own it, explain to the public that this was the price of restoring the border, and take the heat, or would he jettison his signature policy item and run away?
Actually, we don't have to wonder about that because he's been flacking for touchback amnesty since last summer, and it sailed in one Trumplican ear and out the other (there being nothing in between to serve as a physical obstacle). The "smart movement" that sees its serial skinnings at the New York liberal conman's hands as one "triumph" after another. Because he's got "the biggest hammer" with which he's tenderizing their figurative skulls.
Perhaps the sheer magnitude of this lightning avalanche of ideological betrayals is what motivated House Speaker Paul Ryan to decline to "unite behind Trump," at least for now:
Will this courageous stand last? Ryan is the highest-ranking 'Pubbie in the federal government, and Trump is his party's nominee, so you'd have to say no, he won't. Perhaps it's a non-telegraphed negotiating ploy - in other words, Ryan is not letting himself be perceived as a cheap date. If Trump wants Eddie Munster's support, he's going to have to earn it. That'll still be more difficult for Ryan to carry through than it will be for rank & file "#SkepticalOfTrumpers" who don't have the pressure of party leadership putting a large thumb on the metaphorical scales. But then he's also got to keep a weather eye on the daunting task of hanging onto his party's House majority, which will be the last line of defense against the renewed Democrat hegemony that Trumpmania has made inevitable. How much can he extract out of Trump for his support? Given that he's already proving that the "art of the deal" is more like "the art of capitulation" when negotiating with anybody he can't bully or bulldoze, perhaps quite a bit.
Of course, the Baron of Butthurt Pavlovianly retaliated almost immediately:
Well, that we already knew - because Speaker Ryan's agenda is conservative. And because Ryan is not robotically "lying back and enjoying it". Something that you'd think would earn a measure of the millionaire slumlord's respect, except that he doesn't respect ANYBODY, and vastly over-respects himself. Which is the antithesis of being "presidential," or of being a competent "deal-maker".
3 comments:
The man is simply showing his managerial astuteness by indicating he will seek expert input before making a final decision.
A whole hell of a lot more presidential that all of the other candidates, especially lying, corrupt Shrillary.
Remember, NOT voting for the GOP guarantees the White House for Shrillary!!!
So that's what perfidy and ideological betrayal has been redefined to mean? "managerial astuteness"? And "presidential" is now being a lying sack of Cheeto-colored shit? And this from a man whose campaign management has been chaotic from day one?
Sorry, you may be that cheap of a date, but my principles still mean something to me.
And please spare me the Hillary scarecrow argument. That cake just don't bake. Trump is as bad as she is, and it is nominating him that has guaranteed a Clinton restoration. And when her flabby arm is raised in triumph six months from now, try looking in the mirror before embarking on the hunt for innocent scapegoats.
Incidentally, reasonable and mature people don't promiscuously overuse exclamation points in their posted comments. It instantly flags one as a Trumplican, which is not something of which to be proud.
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