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> He wasn’t even talking about the budget deficit until then His platform required it. #6 “LARGE TAX CUTS FOR WORKERS, AND NO TAX ON TIPS!” needs smaller gove

by Retric 1y ago

> He wasn’t even talking about the budget deficit until then His platform required it. #6 “LARGE TAX CUTS FOR WORKERS, AND NO TAX ON TIPS!” needs smaller government. So it’s the same old platform with a different emphasis. Or did you think he was suggesting extreme taxes on companies or wealthy people? Deficit spending runs into #3 “END INFLATION”, and he explicitly stated to “PROTECT SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE WITH NO CUTS, INCLUDING NO CHANGES TO THE RETIREMENT AGE” Obviously the option to not even attempt large tax cut exists, but assuming the attempt was made while also trying to lower inflation the math requires less spending or major new taxes on who exactly?

rayiner 1y ago
> His platform required it... Or did you think he was suggesting extreme taxes on companies or wealthy people? No, I figured he was proposing deficit spending, just like every GOP President in my lifetime. Trump's platform is like that of every third world politician that promises voters everything they want without anything they don't, and America is a third world country now.
- Retric 1y ago
  Ahh you simply misunderstood then. Heavy deficit spending eventually = inflation, ie why it spiked during COVID and why inflation was higher at the end of Trump’s first presidency than the start of his second. He’s been surprisingly consistent in at least make token efforts to do what he said he was aiming to do.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    You’re conflating two different points: what’s true in reality, and what voters thought they were voting for. Trump’s platform is aimed at people who don’t understand that deficit spending leads to inflation. (It didn’t under Reagan or Bush.) Or, alternatively, they thought there was trillions of dollars of fat in the budget that could be cut without affecting services they want. It’s like how Democrats think you can balance the budget and expand social spending by “taxing the rich a little bit more” (hand gesture). Counting on Americans to be innumerate is winning politics.
    - Retric 1y ago
      Things are kept vague so people can create their own narratives. But in 2024 he continued to used terms like “Drain the Swamp” that directly refer to downsizing government. So your argument is basically he had no intention of carrying though when he’s doing exactly what he said he would. Perhaps you may want to rethink what exactly you are basing that assumption on. As to Democrats it’s not a hand wavy standpoint. Historically, taxing companies and wealthy represented a much larger fraction of the overall tax burden. ~Half of federal revenue came from companies in the 1950’s today it’s vastly lower. Changing that means lower taxes on yourself and or much lower deficits.
      - rayiner 1y ago
        > But in 2024 he continued to used terms like “Drain the Swamp” that directly refer to downsizing government. In this context, "drain the swamp" refers to downsizing the Democrat-voting civil service. It's chiefly an objection to the fact that, even when a Republican wins, the actual government is controlled by people who hate Republicans and try to undermine the elected administration's policies. RCP has Trump at 45% approve, 51% disapprove, which is where Obama was for much of his second term. Biden was significantly below that for all but two short periods after 2021. So if people voted for Trump thinking he'd cut Social Security and Medicare and now are disappointed about it, it's not showing up in the polling. > As to Democrats it’s not a hand wavy standpoint. It's totally unmoored from reality. The 2022 deficit was $1.4 trillion. The total income of people in the top 1% that year was $3.3 trillion, and they paid $560 billion in income taxes: https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2025 https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in.... You could double the federal tax burden on everyone from Facebook program managers up to Mark Zuckerberg and not come close to closing the deficit, much less making room for universal healthcare and free college. But "we'll have generous government services and the rich people will pay for it" is the same sort of innumerate fantasy as "we'll build a wall and Mexico will pay for it." Every European country today pays for its welfare state with heavy, broad-based taxes on the top 60%. If you're telling people that you can have a European-style welfare state without European-style middle classes taxes, then you're in RFK Jr. anti-vaxxer levels of denying reality. > ~Half of federal revenue came from companies in the 1950’s today it’s vastly lower. It was never more than about 30%, during World War II and immediately thereafter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_taxation_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Taxes_revenue_by_source_chart_history.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_taxation_in_the_Uni.... It was back below 20% by the mid 1960s. But it's 2025, not 1955. The U.S. doesn't have the leverage to tax trans-national corporations the way it did when Europe's economy was obliterated by World War II. The massive reduction of corporate income tax as a source of tax revenue has happened across the entire developed world.

by Retric 1y ago

rayiner 1y ago

> His platform required it... Or did you think he was suggesting extreme taxes on companies or wealthy people? No, I figured he was proposing deficit spending, just like every GOP President in my lifetime. Trump's platform is like that of every third world politician that promises voters everything they want without anything they don't, and America is a third world country now.

Retric 1y ago
Ahh you simply misunderstood then. Heavy deficit spending eventually = inflation, ie why it spiked during COVID and why inflation was higher at the end of Trump’s first presidency than the start of his second. He’s been surprisingly consistent in at least make token efforts to do what he said he was aiming to do.
- rayiner 1y ago
  You’re conflating two different points: what’s true in reality, and what voters thought they were voting for. Trump’s platform is aimed at people who don’t understand that deficit spending leads to inflation. (It didn’t under Reagan or Bush.) Or, alternatively, they thought there was trillions of dollars of fat in the budget that could be cut without affecting services they want. It’s like how Democrats think you can balance the budget and expand social spending by “taxing the rich a little bit more” (hand gesture). Counting on Americans to be innumerate is winning politics.
  - Retric 1y ago
    Things are kept vague so people can create their own narratives. But in 2024 he continued to used terms like “Drain the Swamp” that directly refer to downsizing government. So your argument is basically he had no intention of carrying though when he’s doing exactly what he said he would. Perhaps you may want to rethink what exactly you are basing that assumption on. As to Democrats it’s not a hand wavy standpoint. Historically, taxing companies and wealthy represented a much larger fraction of the overall tax burden. ~Half of federal revenue came from companies in the 1950’s today it’s vastly lower. Changing that means lower taxes on yourself and or much lower deficits.
    - rayiner 1y ago
      > But in 2024 he continued to used terms like “Drain the Swamp” that directly refer to downsizing government. In this context, "drain the swamp" refers to downsizing the Democrat-voting civil service. It's chiefly an objection to the fact that, even when a Republican wins, the actual government is controlled by people who hate Republicans and try to undermine the elected administration's policies. RCP has Trump at 45% approve, 51% disapprove, which is where Obama was for much of his second term. Biden was significantly below that for all but two short periods after 2021. So if people voted for Trump thinking he'd cut Social Security and Medicare and now are disappointed about it, it's not showing up in the polling. > As to Democrats it’s not a hand wavy standpoint. It's totally unmoored from reality. The 2022 deficit was $1.4 trillion. The total income of people in the top 1% that year was $3.3 trillion, and they paid $560 billion in income taxes: https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2025 https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in.... You could double the federal tax burden on everyone from Facebook program managers up to Mark Zuckerberg and not come close to closing the deficit, much less making room for universal healthcare and free college. But "we'll have generous government services and the rich people will pay for it" is the same sort of innumerate fantasy as "we'll build a wall and Mexico will pay for it." Every European country today pays for its welfare state with heavy, broad-based taxes on the top 60%. If you're telling people that you can have a European-style welfare state without European-style middle classes taxes, then you're in RFK Jr. anti-vaxxer levels of denying reality. > ~Half of federal revenue came from companies in the 1950’s today it’s vastly lower. It was never more than about 30%, during World War II and immediately thereafter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_taxation_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Taxes_revenue_by_source_chart_history.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_taxation_in_the_Uni.... It was back below 20% by the mid 1960s. But it's 2025, not 1955. The U.S. doesn't have the leverage to tax trans-national corporations the way it did when Europe's economy was obliterated by World War II. The massive reduction of corporate income tax as a source of tax revenue has happened across the entire developed world.