Lounge Singer Trump Plays "We Hate Taxes" on his Advanced Dementia Tour

Enough pandering bullshit. Let's get real about tax cuts and what they mean...

On Thursday, Donald Trump’s Advanced Dementia Tour showed up in Motown, where he debuted some new songs. First, he got heavy with “Circles”:

It’s so simple, you know. It isn’t like Elon with his rocket ships that land on the moon within 12 inches of where they want to land or he gets the engines back. That was the first, I really...I said “who the hell did that.” I saw engines about three, four years ago. These things were coming, cylinders, no wings, no nothing, and they’re coming down very slowly, landing on a raft in the middle of the ocean someplace with a circle. Boom! Reminded me of the Biden circles that he used to have, right? [Gesticulates with right hand in an oddly circular motion.] He’d have eight circles, and he couldn’t fill them up. And then I heard that he beat us in the popular vote. But that...I don’t know, I don’t know. Couldn’t fill up the eight circles [Again, gesticulates with right hand in an oddly circular motion.] Couldn’t fill up the eight circles. I always loved those circles. They were so beautiful to look at. In fact, the person who did that, that was the best thing about his...the level of that circle was great. But they couldn’t get people, so they used to have the press stand in those circles, because they couldn’t get the people. Then I heard we lost. Oh, we lost. But we’re never going to let that happen again. We’ve been abused by other countries but we’ve been abused by our own politicians, really, more than other countries.

Then he played “Groceries,” a new twist on one of his older tunes:

I have more complaints on grocery. The word grocery. You know, it’s a sorta simple word, but it sorta means like everything you eat. The stomach is speaking. It always does. And, uh, I have more complaints about that. Bacon and things going up. Double. Triple. Quadruple.

He closed out his set in Detroit with a ballad to Detroit:

Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president. You’re going to have a mess on your hands.

Snuck into Trump’s psychedelic jam was a blast from the past, a Golden Oldie whose original songwriter is long forgotten, but whose song is a staple singalong at political hootenannies. It’s a chestnut called “We Hate Taxes.” Republican, Democrat, Independent, it doesn’t matter who you are, you’ve heard the tune from thousands of campaigners of every political ilk. The magic of “We Hate Taxes” is that of a jazz standard. The structure is solid enough that an artist can hang their own riffs on it while not disturbing the song’s essence. Hell, the structure is so strong that the avant-garde can interject “Tax the Rich” and still hate on those taxes.

Donald Trump is not the avant-garde. No matter how many times he plays “We Hate Taxes” he will never abandon the major scale for some billionaire-baiting harmolodics. That ain’t his gig, dad. But he will introduce honks and trills and nonsensical noises that makes the crowd go “Woooo!”

In Detroit, Trump jammed on a few more tax cuts. He told Michigan’s moneymen that if elected president, he’d make car loans deductible. He reiterated his pledge to give tax breaks to companies who produced products in the United States. These concepts of a plan join ones he’s recently played:

·       Eliminating taxes for Americans living overseas

·       Letting people in hurricane zones write off the purchase of home generators

·       Ditch taxing tips

·       No taxes on overtime pay

·       No cap on SALT deductions

·       Eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits

·       A major reduction in the corporate tax rate

·       Tax credits for buying heavy machinery

·       Extending the Trump tax cuts to the 1%

·       Increasing the Trump tax cuts to the 1%

And there’s more to come.

Trump’s concept of a tax plan is difficult to access, mostly because very little of it is on paper and none of it is detailed. Trump’s tax riffs are tired and clichéd, but they are also a lot like improv. Trump sees or hears something and “La la la Cut Taxes.” And the tax improv seems to be happening several times a week. That makes it really difficult for economists to put a cost on Trump’s tax promises.

Harris? That’s easy. Her tax plan is part of her economic plan. It’s been thought out. There’s promises but there’s give and take, ways to pay for most of the cuts she proposes. And her plan is on paper. Thus, experts figure that Harris’s tax plan will cost $3.5 trillion, with much of it paid for by increasing taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

Trump? Dunno. Nothing is on paper. His proposals change from campaign stop to campaign stop. And he keeps on promising more and more cuts and rebates. Still, economists figure that Trump’s proposed cuts will cost us from $6 trillion to $10 trillion. While Trump claims that tariffs with more than pay for his cuts, we know that doesn’t math out.

And then there’s this: Tax policy is Congress’ responsibility. The president simply can’t take a scalpel to our tax code. It has to be refigured though whatever budget Congress comes up with and/or though tax legislation. That’s why, no matter how many politicians running for president or Congress promise tax cuts, tax reform, or raising taxes on the rich, we mostly see nudges, not drastic or needed change. And when we do see cuts, they mostly benefit the rich, and that is because the rich have the money to hire lobbyists and juice campaign coffers. So, Trump can promise whatever including no taxes on kittens and the death of the IRS, but he’s making as much sense as a “Gabba gabba hey!” in the middle of “Caravan.”

But let’s say Trump actually gets his way and is able to get his cuts enacted. That $6 to $10 trillion in cost is $6 to $10 trillion of tax revenue not going to federal programs. Theoretically, that is money not going to all of the federal government. History tells us something different. When the government loses revenue, it has to find a way to make up for it. Yes, some of the loss is absorbed by the “deficit” (at least until deficit hawks get uppity), but most of the loss is negated by cuts in programs and services. We know through experience that those cuts do not hit the military budget, subsidies for oil companies, money spent on people like Elon Musk, police and prisons, and anything else that benefits the wealthy. What does get cut is education, child care, environmental mitigation, disaster preparedness, food and drug inspection, transportation funding, infrastructure development, food aid – basically things that you and I benefit from and will feel hurt when those things get trashed.

And the cost of cutting programs that we need and rely on is much more than dollar and cents in next year’s federal budget. Cut education and after school programs, as well as college assistance, and you guarantee that a good number for children get dumbed down and their economic prospects die. Cut environmental mitigation and disaster preparedness and when a hurricane or wildfire hits, the cost is much greater than if we spent the money on being prepared for disaster! And so it goes.

None of this is stable genius stuff. You and I know it because we spend out lives figuring out how we are going to pay for xxxx when we only have xx worth of money. We are experts in financial gymnastics. We not only know how to rob Peter to pay Paul, we have been both Peter and Paul. Donald Trump, man of the people, doesn’t know this because he’s never had to know this. He’s been given an incredible amount of money and has lost an incredible amount of money and has been given more money. He will never not have money. He never has had to and will never have to balance a checkbook or figure out how he is going to pay the electrical bill. He’s never stood on the street with $8 in his pocket, asking himself “Book or burrito?” And he doesn’t care enough about anyone other than himself to know even secondhand what I am writing about.

And that’s why it’s easy for Donald Trump to promise everything, even when he is being told that he will have to cut government to the bone to get the tax cuts that he and his rich pals want. He doesn’t know, doesn’t care, is totally protected from whatever disaster results from his “plans,” and, frankly doesn’t give a fuck. But wait, there’s more.

Once stuff like road funds, disaster preparedness, and even NASA are cut, the need or desire for these things do not go away. Citizens will demand pothole-free streets and sea walls. They want jobs and no one wants good paying jobs created by the space industry to go away. But, lack of revenue means that we cut the budgets that fund these things. What now? Ba-dum-ba-dum! It’s the private sector to the rescue!

Trump and his profiteering pals kindly offer their services, not for free, or course, but on our dime, and often for more than we’d pay if the government was handling things. But, no, “Government is the problem” we are told. “Private enterprise will do much better,” they say without presenting any proof of that being the case. So, we revive these programs by shoveling money to wealthy contractors and other advocates of socialism for the rich. And NASA becomes the paymaster for “libertarian capitalist” Elon Musk and Space X. All this is passed off as “good taxes” because of one thing: It’s our money going to the richest of the rich.

I’m not saying that Trump tax cut concept of a plan means that there is some conspiracy happening. No, I am simply pointing out what has happened in the past every time politicians cut taxes without a real plan to retain revenue (trickle-down economics is not a plan!).

Oh, and Trump’s promise to eliminate taxes on Social Security? Well, first ask why Social Security is taxed. I know! I know! Reagan! In 1984, after Reagan pushed through major tax cuts, deficit hawks needed more than cuts to “balance the budget” so they made Social Security taxable. And that SALT deduction Trump is complaining about? The SALT deduction allows you a federal tax write-off on state and local taxes paid, at least it did until 2017 when Trump capped it to pay for his tax cuts on the 1%. The SALT cap was very unpopular, especially with the rich, so now Trump wants to uncap it. The man as impulses and reactions, not fully formed thoughts or plans.   

Who doesn’t like to singalong to “We Hate Taxes”? It’s fun but don’t think it’s the carefree, feelgood bubblegum hit we’ve been sold. “We Hate Taxes” is like trying to enjoy Kerry King solo from the comfort of the pit. Act on “We Hate Taxes” and there will be consequences. What Trump is playing is the economic equal of a Creed cover band. It isn’t worthy of an arena stage or even the floor of an intimate local bar. Trump’s tired tunes are best for an open mic at the State Fair, first come, first sign up, no cursing, no covers, you got five minutes, now play.