If Trump is a populist, why did he decrease taxes for billionaires and corporations?

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ShahOfIran1979

ShahOfIran1979

Shah of Iran from 1941-1979
kiwifarms.net
Joined
Aug 21, 2024
I've never really understood why MAGA has no quarrel about this. Trump constantly drones on and on about how he's for the working class and that he fights against massive elites, while at the same time promoting tax cuts that grow inequality. Whenever you point this out, they claim that you're promoting "class war," despite the fact they supposedly oppose these elites.

For example, the 2017 tax cuts reduced the top single filed and jointly filed tax rate from 39.6% to 37%, and also reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Keep in mind, the top tax rate used to be over 90% in the mid 1900s.
 
The biggest problem with tax cuts under Trump aren't the fact they increase inequality. The problem with them is they aren't being paid for by negating an equal amount of spending. Inequality is a fundamental law of nature, and the progressive premise that something needs to be done about it is fundamentally wrong.
 
"Populist" is a slur. It means "politician who promises what voters want".

The ideal of democracy is voters openly voting against their interests, for candidates they think they're supposed to like but don't, out of a sense of civic duty instilled by civics classes in schools.

When a politician promises voters something (anything) they actually want (such as imprisoning and executing criminals, or an end to government waste, or no men in women's washrooms), he is branded a "populist". He doesn't need to deliver on it (but delivering makes it worse), just to promise.

A "populist" doesn't have to be "on the political left", whatever that means -- in the first world, it means nothing, because "proper" democracy is completely disconnected from public concerns. He can promise people what they want and do whatever w.r.t. other politicking without breaking his word. Trump withdrew from the WHO on his first (second?) day in office, but he could've taken over it instead, the people who voted for him don't care which, they just don't want to choose between clot shots and starvation. None of the big policies j*urnos whine about would contradict a Communist dicktatorial rejeem.

TL;DR:
populist:
- promises concrete goals
- may also explain how he intends to achieve them, to persuade people he will

democrat:
- promises gay policies
- also promises generic niceties such as low prices and low unemployment
- you can't question how the policies are supposed to bring about the niceties, you're not an expert
 
Decreasing people's personal income taxes doesn't seem that bad. Has some effect, but not that world changing.

You still have a variety of other taxes used to help with funding the government with things like capital gains taxes, sales taxes, and so on. Suppose an issue is you don't really want to scare off the billionaires from keeping their money/businesses in the US, since then it can be taxed.

Reminded a bit of the some of the scandals that have occurred over the years in Europe where people were found to have been making sure they were receiving their pay to an entity they formed within the US, so as to enjoy the lower taxes. Think Jimmy Carr had that happen to himself. Since it really is an incredibly inviting tax environment that attracts people wanting to dodge taxes in their home countries, helping subsidize Americans' government spending.

So while you personally may want to imagine populism involves needing to be at war with the elites on every level, it's worth considering that they're in an obnoxiously powerful position that necessitates having to still live with them.

Though I think many consider populism to more be about helping the population in general, which doesn't really require that you be against those sorts of tax policies. Like wanting a higher minimum wage doesn't mean you are required to want higher capital gains taxes, even if it might be satisfying to do so on the surface.

Trump has honestly done some stuff though in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, to force a tax on accumulated earnings of foreign corporations that occurred within the US territorial system. So companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft would be forced to pay billions in taxes to the US.


For example:
Apple, which has 94 percent of its total cash of $269 billion outside the United States, said it would make a one-time tax payment of $38 billion on the repatriated cash.
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That particular tax was a bit funny as it resulted in some stupid sob stories ending up in the news about businesses, legally located in India, being forced to start paying taxes in the US for money they'd earned here. They were making a point of not accepting the payments within the US since they wanted to skip paying taxes were at all, in spite of actually working within the US. So populist policy has helped to avoid these completely absurd tax dodges. Believe SCOTUS ruled against them last year by the way.

So I suppose I would question whether populism really requires a specific tax policy if the end goal is to achieve a better outcome for the population.
 
ShahOfIran1979 said:
I've never really understood why MAGA has no quarrel about this. Trump constantly drones on and on about how he's for the working class and that he fights against massive elites, while at the same time promoting tax cuts that grow inequality. Whenever you point this out, they claim that you're promoting "class war," despite the fact they supposedly oppose these elites.

For example, the 2017 tax cuts reduced the top single filed and jointly filed tax rate from 39.6% to 37%, and also reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Keep in mind, the top tax rate used to be over 90% in the mid 1900s.
Click to expand...
>maybe Trump isn't so good and is a populist?
Ah yes, I see the perfection of your art of bait-fishing amerisharts. My hat is off to you, sir!
 
Have a look at the inverse right now in the UK.

Kier Starmer and Rachel Reeves, in their infinite wisdom decided to slap an assortment of massive taxes on buisness owners and the wealthy. Because being 'rich', that is owning your own home and above, is privilege mkay?

Guess what all of the millionaires and above, to a man, have started doing? Moving themselves and their fortunes to the UAE, Monaco or a similar low/no tax area.

I'm sure Americans would like to think their citizens are patriotic and will continue to file their tax returns while operating elsewhere. Fat fucking chance.

Most people are willing to pay some tax, up to a point. The Republican party, and Trump, still understands this. Otherwise you end up like Kier, lose your wealthiest tax payers and then end up rinsing the lower classes anyway once Antoine XVI Moneybags decides he'd like to spend all year in Dubai.

Fair and right plays second fiddle to reality. The wealthiest don't see why they shouldn't be rewarded for exemplary success, and because of what they are they have influence to call the shots. Beyond tax havens, some of them can even negotiate custom residency conditions. Apple and Google essentially had a bespoke agreement to not pay tax in Ireland for years, because the government was open to the idea of not taxing them because of the employment opportunities they would bring.
 
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Karen of Human Resources said:
Have a look at the inverse right now in the UK.

Kier Starmer wnd Rachel Reeves, in their infinite wisdom decided to slap an assorted of massive taxes on buisness owners and the wealthy. Because being 'rich', that is owning your own home and above, is privilege mkay?

Guess what all of the millionaires and above, to a man, have started doing? Moving themselves and their fortunes to the UAE, Monaco or a similar low/no tax area.

I'm sure Americans would like to think their citizens are patriotic and will continue to file their tax returns while operating elsewhere. Fat fucking chance.

Most people are willing to pay some tax, up to a point. The Republican party, and Trump, still understands this. Otherwise you end up like Kier, lose your wealthiest tax payers and then end up rinsing the lower classes anyway once Antoine XVI Moneybags decides he'd like to spend all year in Dubai.

Fair and right plays second fiddle to reality. The wealthiest don't see why they shouldn't be rewarded for exemplary success, and because of what they are they have influence to call the shots. Beyond tax havens, some of them can even negotiate custom residency conditions. Apple and Google essentially had a bespoke agreement to not pay tax in Ireland for years, because the government was open to the idea of not taxing them because of the employment opportunities they would bring.
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Several countries have tried and failed to implement "Wealth" tax and have gotten the same results. They ended up losing more than what was brought it because people just took their money and left. There's a legitimate reason as to why no country has ever been taxed to prosperity.
 
Populism is a meme, does not and never has existed. Even the French Revolution was bankrolled, Hitler had his financiers, the American revolution was led by those who were functionally the elite of the American colonies at the time. "We the people" are specks of dust on an infinitely large chess board, ever-manipulable by those with greater mass (power) under their command, transparently or otherwise.
 
It's Republican shit. Something something tax cuts make jobs something something trickle down. They have been pulling that shit since the 80's with Saint Reagan. Though whenever they give the rich people tax cuts or even bailout money they never make any jobs. All they do is pocket the money and send more jobs overseas and push for more cheap foreign labor. In the late 2000's when the Great Recession/micro collapse happened that was one of the stipulations for them getting bailed out. They told people if they got the trillions of dollars in bailouts, they would use it to create jobs. But they never made any jobs. Just like when Bush was in office, and he gave rich people tax cuts. They said they would make jobs. But again no jobs were ever made.

What Trump should do is close the loopholes and stop letting rich people hide their money in offshore tax shelters. This is how you make sure they pay their fair share. The opposite end of the stick is Democrats promising to tax the rich, but they end up taxing regular folks instead.
 
Let's say there's two people who pay taxes. The poor guy pays $10 in taxes, and the rich guy pays $1,000 in taxes. Now let's say Trump comes along and says, "Taxes are decreased by 10% across the board. Enjoy your money!" Now the poor guy is paying $9, and the rich guy is paying $900, leading to savings of $1 and $100, respectively. Everybody saves money.

Now, a retard like OP comes along, sees this, and says, "It's not fair that the rich guy is saving $100! That's 100 times what the poor man is saving! We need to increase taxes on the rich!" Because OP is mentally retarded, he can't see that both are saving the same proportion of their money (10%), the rich guy is still paying more than the poor man (at a 1:100 ratio), or the simple fact that the more taxes you pay, the more you benefit from tax cuts.

Before you start squealing about how "this example doesn't line up with reality", you're right: it doesn't. The top 1% in the USA pays 40% of all taxes, the top 50% pays 97% of all taxes. This means the bottom 50% of the country pays only 3% of all taxes. As of 2022. 40% of all American households don't pay any Federal income tax.

Now, since you are mentally retarded, I'll spell it out for you: if the top 1% decided to pull up their roots and run away to Dubai or Monaco, the remaining taxpayers aren't paying enough taxes to cover the costs. We're seeing this in England, California and New York, and the European Union. This will cause a tax increase on the "new" 1%, which will cause them to find ways to avoid taxes, leading to a cascading exodus of taxpayers until the only ones left are people who never paid taxes to begin with.

Do not rob the people who produce wealth to give to those who consume it.
 
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They all claim to work for the working man, while exploiting them and lining their own pockets. It's just politics.
 
Ducks Sorted in a Row said:
Populism is a meme, does not and never has existed. Even the French Revolution was bankrolled, Hitler had his financiers, the American revolution was led by those who were functionally the elite of the American colonies at the time. "We the people" are specks of dust on an infinitely large chess board, ever-manipulable by those with greater mass (power) under their command, transparently or otherwise.
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Kinda agree in the sense that we're always having to choose which elites we sorta want to side with due to thinking they'd help us more than the other assholes. So someone like Trump being willing to focus on toning down immigration to help with the job market, not the worst kind of 'populism' I could side with.

It'd be nice if we could have a system where the ultra wealthy elites didn't have 90% of the power and authority, but it's nearly impossible due to how easy it is (relatively speaking) to bankroll some astroturfed support for whatever politics the elites want.
 
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