Columns, Opinion By Tom H. Hastings, Guest Columnist
The Trump budget — pure profit for Pentagon corporate contractors. The Trump tax “reform” — massive tax cuts for the rich. Really? We are going to stand for this?
Compared to last year, if his corporations truly paid the going corporate tax rate, Trump would “richly benefit,” in multiple ways when his proposed cuts kick in. His corporate tax burden would be cut by at least 4.9 percent — millions of dollars — and his personal taxes would likely be cut even more massively, although since he alone amongst modern presidents has refused to let the American people see his returns, we cannot pin a number on his projected undeserved gains.
This is the textbook definition of corruption.
Fortunately for him, the senators are wealthy too and love these ideas, as are most of the members of the House of Representatives. Corrupt Congress, corrupt president — and somehow the white male voters generally suppose this will all work out for them, since a reported 96 percent of his voters say they would vote for him again (and white males voted for him in overwhelming numbers, with white males without a college education voting for him by a 72-percent rate).
This is not working out for those uneducated white men, but they love him. Could it be that blowing off a Mother of All Bombs on Afghans, deporting Mexicans, ending Department of Justice investigations of police killings of people of color, and banning many Muslims from entering the U.S. is more important than getting totally hosed by a kleptocratic “kommander-in-chief” and “kongress”? Interesting priorities.
Just to further pound-in the financial punishment to the very voters who put him and the other Republican lawmakers into office, they are gutting health care to millions of the least well-off Americans, as the Tea Partiers are now lining up to repeal Obamacare — unless enough moderate Republicans save the day, which will only happen by ongoing constituent pressure.
