Why American Oligarchs Will Have No Better Result Than Russian
A recent column from Paul Krugman in The New York Times was entitled “Freedom’s Just Another Word for Not Paying Taxes.”
According to his column, the billionaire class is backing another Trump presidency because he has said he wants to keep the 2017 tax cuts that are scheduled to expire next year. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a non-partisan think tank, has written that workers who earned less than $114,000 in 2016 received no benefit at all. They recommend an expiration of the tax cuts for those making less than $400,000.
In simple terms, next year the top 1% will be taxed $61,090.00 less than they would have been and the top .1% $252,300.00. Contained in the 2017 bill was a 20% deduction pass through for certain income for business owners that were generally taxed at the same rates as wages and salary before enactment. That corresponds to the corporate rate of 20% made permanent by the bill.
No one wants to pay taxes. As Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.” Unfortunately, what Trump did not enact were budget cuts. In four years, his administration ran up a $3 trillion deficit. This is when there was no economic downturn.
What will happen when there is a downturn if we continue to run these deficits during this time of the highest stock market and real estate values ever. At some point, we will have a recession accompanied by inflation, and the federal government will have little room to maneuver.
The United States has the strongest economy in the world. Yet our government provides the least to the people who need it most. The 1% need to pay more taxes. It isn’t negotiable. The only thing that trickles down to most Americans are fewer services.
We also must get our entitlements under control. Medicare and Social Security need not be bankrupt. One idea is to eliminate the current cap of $118,500 and raise the rate by .3% for employers and employees. It is estimated by anther think tank, The Manhattan Institute, that would do it.
Trump’s tariff and protectionist policies would increase inflation and would probably throw the country into a recession. Biden has a targeted manufacturing policy which will probably not succeed in the long run. However, looking at Trump’s policies, Biden resembles a free market trader.
It appears to me that Trump is trying to recreate the Russian economy with a bunch of sycophantic billionaire oligarchs beholden to him. At first, the Russian billionaire class believed they controlled Putin. It was too late when they discovered that Putin controlled them.
Anyone who places all their eggs in the Trump basket needs to be prepared to lose most, if not all, of them. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis went to war with Florida’s largest company and private employer, Disney, resulting in the loss of their right to self-government. It wasn’t the Trump wannabe who suffered. The power of the government will always beat any individual or company that goes against it regardless of how much money or perceived influence they may think they have.
