I created a blog back in 2008 during the first Obama election, which I affectionately called Sensible Conservatism. The meaning of the name was just this: that while I view all issues through the prism of conservative principles, I am not so pig-headed that I automatically reject something a liberal might say just because they’re liberal. A wise person will listen to all positions and make his decisions off of all the information. Does that make me right all the time? Goodness no. But when sensibility is applied to these discussions, I believe right answers and solutions are found far more often.
I had pretty much abandoned
this blog in 2014 leading up to the last midterms. But I think this is the right time to bring
it back out.
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Having been a trained
debater, I have to tell you that watching the first presidential debate was
torturous. It was so painful because I
could tell that Clinton was the more trained debater. And yet, having researched the issues so
thoroughly, it was even more painful because I knew the right way to respond to
her plethora of lies and assertions and yet Trump was, for the most part, not
responding well.
That being said, I found it
quite intriguing that virtually every snap poll showed Trump winning the
debate. After the surprise and relief
subsided I began to wonder how he won so decisively. And it came down to two issues. One, that Hillary Clinton is an icon of all
that we voters have come to despise about Washington D.C. And two, that despite her better presentation
skills, she still can’t sell her ideas to us.
So I have decided that I
wanted to start a process whereby we can study the differences between Trump
and Clinton on many of the issues. After all, there are still some people on
the fence and we have six weeks to bring them onto our side of the fence.
Let’s begin with the
economy. This subject would include such
issues as jobs, taxes, trade, the deficit and the debt.
Let’s be clear about one
thing first. Both candidates…for that
matter, all of us…have to accept that the rich have the money and our common
goal is for us to find ways to get them to distribute that money to the rest of
us. The difference between Clinton and
Trump is in how to get them to distribute it.
To be clear, let me just
point out that there are really only three fundamental ways to get money from
the rich: 1) they invest it in something like their own business, other
businesses, the stock market, whatever…and thus that money is injected into the
economy. Even investing it into a bank,
injects it into the economy. 2) they spend it.
In spending it, even on what you or I would consider a luxury item like
a yacht, they are injecting it into the middle class. The person who sold them the yacht. The company who many the yacht hired
employees. The companies that made the
parts that make the yacht hire employees.
The company that transports the yachts hires people. The companies that repair the yachts hires
people. And so on. 3) Its either taken
from them or they give it away. They can
donate it to charities and in that case, it gets to the people who need it with
few middle men or someone takes it like a thief. And I would venture to say that we’ve become
numb to the idea that even taxation is little more than legalized theft.
To Clinton and the leftists
like her, the best way to get the rich to distribute money to the rest of us is
to have the government take it from them and let the government decide how to
best distribute it to us. That’s nice,
but it has several negative effects.
First, the rich, as any of us would do if the government tried to
confiscate our money, will try every means of preventing the government from
taking their money.
They will find loopholes in
tax laws. They will move their money to
other countries where the tax laws are less intrusive. They’ll set up trusts
and foundations. There are hundreds, if
not thousands of ways to shelter their money from the government. Why do they do that? The obvious reason is that they, like the
rest of us, don’t want anyone just taking their money. And if someone does take their money, they’d
like some say so in where it goes.
The end result of this is
that it stifles job growth…except for jobs that the government pays, or helps
pay, for. Any growth in the economy
occurs where the government wants it to grow…not necessarily where we want it
to grow or where it should grow.
Second, when the government
gets involved in controlling more and more of the economy, that’s when these
artificial bubbles develop and when they burst, we’re all hurt. And what happens when they burst? The government steps in as some sort of faux
white knight to rescue us and ends up taking more control over even more of our
lives.
From my experience, the
government does this through three means: 1) economic disasters, 2) wars, and
3) health crises. And we keep falling for it.
Trump, on the other hand,
advocates what those on the left have disparagingly called “trickle down
economics”. It is what is more
technically known as “supply side economics”.
The basis of all capitalism is supply and demand. And that’s what Trump advocates for.
In his plan, he lowers taxes
on businesses primarily. Why? Because when taxes (and regulations) are
lowered on businesses, their cost of doing business lowers. The Hillary’s of the world will suggest that’s
bad because they fear that business owners will greedily take that extra cash
and hoard it and keep it for themselves.
And perhaps some will.
But the theories of supply
side economics suggest that a vast majority of those business owners will
re-invest that cash back into their business.
There is a simple reason most people go into business for
themselves. They know that the simple
rules of economics suggest that if they can successfully leverage other people’s
labor, cash and assets, that they can exponentially grow their own wealth.
The Hillary’s of the world
think that’s just evil. Ironically, that’s
exactly what government does as well.
But somehow it’s evil when individuals do it for business purposes, but
not evil when the government does it.
But when individuals and
businesses do this, it creates jobs. And
every new job creates more demand…for one product/service or another. Which creates more jobs and more demand. And
what happens with every demand? A
purchase and a local tax is paid. And
what happens with every new job? Taxes
are paid to the state and the feds. And when those businesses successfully
leverage other people’s labor and cash and assets, what happens? They make more profits, which are, of course,
TAXED.
So, in the end, the money
that the wealthy possessed STILL ends up in the government’s hands. Except instead of the government simply
confiscating it, it goes through millions upon millions of middle class hands
on its way to the government.
There is the appearance that
the burden was upon the middle class to pay those taxes. But who really paid them? The money still came from the rich. But instead of running those sticky
government hands first, it goes through our hands first before it gets to the
government.
Simple question…which would
you prefer?
But I’m not done, nor is
Trump’s plan. Once money gets into the
hands of individuals, there are individual taxes to pay. In Trump’s plan, he lowers the overall rate
of taxation down to three brackets. In
addition, he raises the threshold on how much someone can earn and NOT pay
taxes (aside from FICA).
The part of this that
Hillary attacks is the lower tax bracket for the wealthy. There’s only one problem with her
complaint. In lowered the bracket, Trump
is proposing virtually eliminating tax loopholes for the wealthy. Without the loopholes, there’s no game of
hide and seek played by the wealthy with their money. They earned money? Here’s the tax rate for it.
Tomorrow, I will address
trade and its effect on jobs and the economy.
If there is a subject you wish to read about, let me know.
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