A Distributional Analysis of Donald Trump’s Tax Plan

[diamenz]

Impact Of Donald Trump’s Tax Proposals by Income Group

Former President Donald Trump has proposed a wide variety of tax policy changes. Taken together, these proposals would, on average, lead to a tax cut for the richest 5 percent of Americans and a tax increase for all other income groups.

If these proposals were in effect in 2026, the richest 1 percent would receive an average tax cut of about $36,300 and the next richest 4 percent would receive an average tax cut of about $7,200. All other groups would see a tax increase with the hike on the middle 20 percent at about $1,500 and the increase on the lowest-income 20 percent of Americans at about $800.

Figure 1:

https://media.itep.org/cdn-cgi/image/format=webp/https://media.itep.org/Trump-Proposals-Cut-Taxes-for-Richest-5-Percent-Raise-Taxes-on-Other-Groups-934x1024.png

Former President Trump has offered several tax proposals, which are all included in these estimates:

- Extending the temporary provisions in Trump’s 2017 tax law that will otherwise expire at the end of 2025, except for the $10,000 cap on State and Local Tax (SALT) deductions, which Trump says he would not extend
- Exempting certain types of income from taxes (overtime pay, tips, and Social Security benefits)
- Reducing the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 20 percent and then further reducing it to 15 percent for “companies that make their product in America”
- Repealing tax credits enacted as part of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that provide incentives for the production and use of green energy
- Imposing a new 20 percent tariff on imported goods, with a higher rate of 60 percent for goods from China

As illustrated in Figure 2, some of Trump’s proposals cut taxes dramatically, particularly his proposal to extend the temporary 2017 tax provisions. But his proposed tariffs, which would be largely passed onto consumers as increased prices, would more than offset those tax cuts for all income groups outside the richest 5 percent.

(See post #2 for extended details on the above).

Figure 2:

https://media.itep.org/cdn-cgi/image/format=webp/https://media.itep.org/Average-Tax-Changes-Trump-Tax-Proposals-dollar-amount-1024x607.png

While Figures 1 and 2 above measure the impact for each income group as the average tax change in dollars, Figures 3 and 4 below measure the impact as a share of income for each group.

Measured as a share of income, the tax increases faced by most Americans would fall hardest on working-class families. As illustrated in Figure 3, the middle 20 percent of Americans would face a tax increase equal to 2.1 percent of their income, while the poorest 20 percent of Americans would face a tax increase equal to 4.8 percent of their income – all while the top 5 percent get a tax cut.

Figure 3:

https://media.itep.org/cdn-cgi/image/format=webp/https://media.itep.org/Poor-Americans-see-largest-tax-increase-from-Trump-tax-proposals-914x1024.png

Figure 4 reveals how the various categories of Trump’s tax proposals are contributing to the plan’s overall impact. The effective tax increase that results from Trump’s tariff proposal, for example, would be paid by everyone who makes purchases in the U.S., but it would comprise a smaller share of income for the richest taxpayers than it would for everyone else.

Similarly, Trump’s proposals to extend the temporary 2017 tax provisions would cut taxes, on average, for all income groups, but it would provide much larger tax cuts to the richest groups as a share of income.

Figure 4:

https://media.itep.org/cdn-cgi/image/format=webp/https://media.itep.org/Average-Tax-Changes-Trump-Tax-Proposals-share-of-income-1024x607.png

[diamenz]

Overview of Former President Trump’s Tax Proposals

The appendix at the end of this report includes estimates that are broken down into each category of the provisions described here.

Extending Temporary 2017 Tax Provisions

The lawmakers who drafted the 2017 tax law made many of its provisions temporary to hide the costs of eventually making those provisions permanent. Those temporary provisions expire at the end of 2025. They are mostly tax cuts, but they also include some provisions that raise taxes and partly offset the costs of the tax cuts. The overall result for most taxpayers was a tax cut.

This analysis assumes that Trump’s proposal to extend the temporary 2017 tax provisions would be identical to legislation in Congress to accomplish the same goal (the TCJA Permanency Act) with one exception. Recently Trump announced he would not extend the cap on federal income tax deductions for state and local taxes (SALT), the most significant provision in the law that slightly offsets the legislation’s tax breaks for the wealthy. This means that the tax breaks resulting from Trump’s proposed extension of the 2017 law would be even larger and more regressive than the TCJA Permanency Act, which ITEP has recently analyzed with national and state-by-state estimates.[1]

The temporary 2017 tax provisions included several types of changes to the tax code:

Reduced most of the income tax rates and adjusted the tax brackets
Increased the standard deduction and Child Tax Credit and offset most of the costs by repealing personal exemptions
Restricted the reach of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), a backstop tax to limit tax breaks for the well-off
Changed itemized deductions by eliminating some and removing an overall limit to itemized deductions for the well-off (It also sharply capped the deduction for state and local taxes, but that is not included in this analysis because Trump has recently stated he would not extend that limit.)
Created a 20 percent deduction for income from “pass-through” businesses, which mostly benefits the richest 1 percent
Restricted the reach of the estate tax so that a married couple can now leave behind more than $27 million in 2024 without any estate tax liability[2]
Exempting Certain Types of Income from Tax
Trump has proposed preferencing several types of income – tips, overtime pay, and Social Security benefits – over other forms of income that Americans receive.

As seen earlier in Figure 4, taken as a group these new carveouts would be most advantageous to upper-middle class Americans. This is because the highest-income families do not tend to receive especially large amounts of these forms of income, and lower- and moderate-income families are generally not positioned to make full use of these tax exemptions due to other exemptions and the income tax’s graduated rate structure.

An approach that provides tax breaks specifically to low- and middle-income families, regardless of the type of income they receive, would be more targeted and fairer. For example, a tipped worker may or may not earn a large income, and even one earning very little could be married to someone with a large salary, meaning their household income is much higher than average.

Cutting the Corporate Tax Rate

Trump proposes to cut the federal corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 20 percent, and further to 15 percent for “companies that make their product in America.” While Trump has not provided any more details on this proposal, the concept is broadly similar to the section 199 deduction for domestic production that existed until it was repealed in the 2017 law to, in small part, offset the cost of corporate tax cuts. That deduction, which had the effect of lowering the tax rate paid by eligible companies as determined by a complex set of rules, was estimated to apply to about 37 percent of corporate profits in one study.[3] The best available evidence suggests the deduction failed to increase manufacturing in the U.S.[4]

These proposed cuts would follow deep corporate tax cuts – most of which were permanent – that were part of the 2017 tax law. Most prominently, the 2017 law reduced the federal corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. Most corporations pay an effective rate that is lower than the statutory rate, and the effective rate paid by most companies fell as well after 2017. America’s largest, consistently profitable corporations saw their effective tax rates fall from an average of 22.0 percent to an average of 12.8 percent after the Trump tax law went into effect.[5]

Cuts in the federal corporate income tax mainly benefit owners of U.S. corporate stocks, which are held disproportionately by high-income households and by white households, which means they contribute to inequality in the U.S., even as many of the benefits flow out of the country to foreign investors.[6]

Repealing Green Energy Tax Credits

Trump has suggested that he would repeal a wide array of tax credits designed to accelerate the nation’s transition to green energy sources. Some of these tax credits, enacted as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, go to individuals and businesses purchasing electric vehicles or energy-efficient equipment, while others flow to companies ramping up their production of solar, wind, and other green energy sources. The effect of repealing these credits would be partly to raise after-tax costs for consumers and partly to reduce the profits of companies participating in the green energy transition.

Not captured in the estimates shown in this report are the broader benefits to society related to reducing climate change, which are the motivation for the enactment of these credits.

Imposing New Tariffs

Trump proposes a new 60 percent tariff on goods imported from China and a 20 percent tariff on goods imported from other countries. His recent statement that he would impose tariffs of between 50 percent and 200 percent came too late for this analysis and lacks specificity.

While targeted tariffs can have a useful role in trade policy, economists agree that tariffs, particularly broad-based tariffs, raise the prices paid by consumers and businesses on the goods and services they buy.[7] The sweeping tariffs proposed by Trump, which are far larger than any on the books today, would raise the prices faced by American consumers across the income scale. Because lower- and middle-income families must spend a larger share of their earnings to make ends meet, this would have a particularly noticeable impact on their household budgets. The portion paid initially by businesses is also largely passed through to consumers although portions are passed to shareholders and employees.

Tariffs on the scale that former President Trump has proposed would massively disrupt the economy. They would cause substantial price increases on imported goods, severely damage the industries that rely on imports, hurting employment in those industries, and result in price increases for goods for which final production occurs domestically. There is no coherent economic analysis that suggests that the costs would significantly be borne by foreign exporters. In the environment of a fully employed workforce with 5 percent of it targeted for deportation,[8] there is little capacity for production to shift to the U.S.

In many cases such shifts would be enormously expensive and in some cases they would be impossible. To the extent there might be some shifting of production it would be at the expense of current goods and services produced in the U.S. and would result in higher prices for consumers. A discussion of the economic literature that underpins the general incidence approach taken here can be found in a paper by Clausing and Lovely. For further discussion of the specific ITEP approach to modeling tariffs, see the methodology section.

[diamenz]

Appendix: Methodology

The bulk of this analysis was conducted using the ITEP Microsimulation Tax Model. The unconventional nature of many of the policy proposals crafted by former President Trump, however, required bringing in new data and techniques previously outside the model’s scope. Each of the major components of the tax modeling underlying this report is discussed below.

Personal Income Tax

The bulk of the personal income tax changes proposed by Trump—especially the extension of temporary tax provisions first enacted as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (P.L. 115-97, often called the “2017 tax law”)—are well within the scope of the ITEP Model’s core competencies. ITEP’s previous report on extending the 2017 tax provisions provides a more detailed explanation of how these estimates are produced.[9]

The model combines data from the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, and numerous other sources to create a valid representation of the U.S. population, including federal filers and nonfilers (ITEP 2024). Its structure mirrors models at the federal level maintained by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, the U.S. Treasury Department, and the Congressional Budget Office, and at the state level by the Minnesota Department of Revenue and other state agencies. Microsimulation modeling is widely regarded as the best approach to tax policy analysis because of its ability to account for overlapping and interacting tax provisions and to produce results that are representative of the full population.

Trump proposes to create new income tax exemptions for two forms of income—tips and overtime pay—that are not currently reported in IRS datasets in forms suitable for distributional analysis. These proposals therefore require bringing new information into the ITEP Model dataset.

We use IRS data on the overall amount of reported tips and distribute that amount by income level using data obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC). Because of sample size issues the tax change for the tip exemption should not be considered reliable for the top 5 percent income groups.

For the analysis of overtime pay, we rely on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to estimate the current volume of overtime pay, and on data by income level from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to estimate the distribution of that pay across groups.

Notably, our analyses of exemptions for tips and overtime pay assume no gaming or behavioral response as the level and character of such a response would be heavily dependent on the design of rules preventing manipulation by taxpayers that Trump has yet to articulate. Without strong rules, both the cost and regressivity of new exemptions for tips and overtime pay could be more substantial than we estimate in this study.

Corporate Income Tax

Trump has proposed lowering the overall corporate income tax rate from 21 to 20 percent, and pairing that with an additional reduction to 15 percent for “companies that make their product in America.” Our estimate of the reach of that 15 percent rate relies on work by Lestor and Rector (2016) finding that 37.2 percent of corporate taxable income qualified for a similar policy (IRC Section 199) designed to lower the effective tax rate on U.S. manufacturing prior to its repeal under President Trump in 2017. Our analysis applies this same 37.2 percent coverage rate to Trump’s new proposal.

For the distribution of Trump’s corporate tax cuts by income level, we adopt the approach used by the Joint Committee on Taxation and assign the full impact to owners of capital as our analysis examines the immediate impact of such a change in the first year it would be in effect (JCT 2013). This includes foreign owners of stocks in U.S. corporations.

It is unclear what the foreign-owned fraction is today under JCT’s analyses, but others find it is now much higher than previously believed. Steve Rosenthal and Theo Burke at the Tax Policy Center estimated in 2019 foreign investors owned 40 percent of the shares in American corporations.[10] (This figure has recently been updated to 42 percent, but ITEP uses the 40 percent estimate for simplicity and because the difference between these figures is small.[11])

[diamenz]

Appendix: Methodology (Continued)

Green Energy Credits

Our modeling of the distributional impact of repealing the green energy tax credits contained in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (P.L. 117-169) includes several components. The distribution of electric vehicle credits benefiting individuals, for example, is based on our analysis of electric vehicle ownership in the Federal Highway Administration’s National Household Travel Survey. We distribute the residential energy credits with the assistance of IRS tabular data. The remainder of the credits are paid to business entities and benefit people indirectly.

In the ITEP modeling, these credits are generally assigned to the owners of capital, much like with our analysis of the first-year effects of the corporate tax rate changes included in Trump’s tax plan. This approach errs on the side of making Trump’s proposals look less regressive than they are because, given the nature of the business entities involved, a substantial portion of the cost of repeal is passed through to consumers. This likelihood of a shared incidence effect between consumers and producers is discussed in Bistline et al. (2023).

Estate Tax

The incidence of the estate tax is assigned to the decedent, consistent with most other distributional analyses of this tax (Burman et al., 2008; Minnesota Department of Revenue, 2024). The ITEP Model’s estate tax module relies on a combination of data from the IRS and the Survey of Consumer Finances to estimate overall wealth and net taxable estate value across income levels.

Tariffs

Our approach to calculating the incidence of tariffs is strongly informed by Clausing and Lovely (2024a).

In particular, we adopt their reasoning as to why the incidence falls on consumers (a view shared almost universally among economists) and whether to account for changes in behavior. We also adopt their assumptions about the policy: a 20 percent tariff on goods from all countries except China for which the tariff would be 60 percent and the assumption that the 60 percent would be a leveling up on past tariffs not on top of tariffs previously imposed (Clausing and Lovely, 2024b).

Although, as described below, our methodology differs from that of other analysts, such as Clausing and Lovely (2024) and Mulholland and Duke (2024), we reach similar conclusions. Our levels appear to be slightly lower than Duke and a bit less regressive than Clausing and Lovely. Our levels are higher than Clausing and Lovely because they do not distribute the entire amount attributable to the U.S. household sector.

A distinction between the approach used here and other analyses is that we make use of the consumption tax module of the ITEP Microsimulation Tax Model. The contours of that module are discussed in the methodological appendix of Davis et al. (2024). We also use a more complicated path from import data to household incidence. Our starting point is the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) Import Matrices in conjunction with the BEA Use Tables. From these tables we find direct imports purchased as well as allocating imported inputs through to these categories of final purchasers. The final purchasers are in 17 categories in the data reflecting purchases for personal consumption, non-residential private fixed investment (businesses), residential private fixed investment, the federal government and state and local governments.

To distinguish between imports from China and the rest of the world, commodity level trade data are used and aligned with the BEA Use Table commodities.

For the portion of the imports that go to personal consumption, the BEA PCE Bridge is used to facilitate linking to the consumption items in the ITEP consumption tax module. Tariffs are calculated and distributed by the model. This constitutes most of what is distributed.

For the other final purchasers, we adopt different approaches. We assume that no tariffs are paid on imports by the federal government—or if they are, they are payments to itself so they do not impact households. State and local governments are treated as passing the taxes on to taxpayers. Business purchases and imported inputs into exports are modeled consistently with the handling of business consumption taxes in the ITEP Model as described in the methodological appendix of Davis et al. (2024).

For the revenue estimate we use the elasticities employed by Clausing and Lovely (2024a) as well as their revenue offset.

source: https://itep.org/a-distributional-analysis-of-donald-trumps-tax-plan-2024/

[ILLsmak]

Seems like this thread says tariffs have a much larger impact on lower incomes. That’s all I’m getting. What else?

The problem being, imo, tariffs have a different purpose than tax cuts. If we can kneecap china, I think a lot of people would be into that. And maybe the assumption is at some point a place other than china would start producing our basic level goods. I think the point is to loosen us from the grip of china while also having them pay a percentage to our govt, even if it costs more.

-Smak

[Real Men Wear Green]

China doesn't pay the tariff, we do. The tariff is not paid by the exporter, it's added to what the price of the good would have been and gets paid by whoever buys it. The tariff does make the good less appealing to the buyer than it would be by increasing the price which could help American made products. The problem is that China will do the same thing to the products we export over there and the resulting tariff war hurts everyone. (https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2022/10/26/policies-and-politics-effects-on-us-china-soybean-trade/) Inflation will go up and will have to subsidize people like the soybean farmers that rely on China to buy their product.

And the thread doesn't just point at tariffs.

[diamenz]

tariffs need to be targeted in order for them to work. we put tariffs on imported goods so that it drives up prices and incentivizes people to instead buy american-made. putting a 20% tariff across the board on every good that comes into the country, including ones that we don't manufacture or produce here makes zero sense and just ends up passing the cost off to consumers. especially with inflation the way it is now, would be economic suicide.

[Hoon]

It's striking to see how Trump's tax proposals disproportionately benefit the wealthiest while burdening the middle and lower-income groups. The proposed tariffs and cuts seem to raise costs for everyday Americans, negating any potential benefits from tax cuts.

[j3lademaster]

Seems like this thread says tariffs have a much larger impact on lower incomes. That’s all I’m getting. What else?

The problem being, imo, tariffs have a different purpose than tax cuts. If we can kneecap china, I think a lot of people would be into that. And maybe the assumption is at some point a place other than china would start producing our basic level goods. I think the point is to loosen us from the grip of china while also having them pay a percentage to our govt, even if it costs more.

-SmakThat’s not how tariffs work, China doesn’t pay us shit.

Let’s say we have the proposed 25% tariffs on steel. Let’s say we purchase $100 in steel. We paid China the $100, tariffs or not- they got their agreed upon money and have washed their hands of us at this point, transaction is done. The company that brings in the steel pays the tariff so the steel now costs $125 and they figure that into their operating cost and raise prices accordingly. China doesn’t pay us the tariff. This is why tariffs are called ‘federal sales tax’ because we as the American consumer Foote the bill for this and it affects poorer people more because that’s how flat taxes work. If you charge everyone $100, billionaires won’t even notice but families who live paycheck to paycheck have to give something up for the month.

The idea of tariffs is to act as a deterrent, in this case for Chinese goods, and to boost domestic competition without us having to lower wages to the levels of other countries to do so, but it’s retarded to shoot ourselves in the foot like that before another country(or ourselves) can provide the manufacturing to replace China- prematurely setting these tariffs before we can replace the manufacturing is basically asking for inflation.

[bladefd]

We knew this already, but I'm glad you sourced it. Donald doesn't care about anything other than tax-cuts for the rich.

[ILLsmak]

That’s not how tariffs work, China doesn’t pay us shit.



Yeah, I guess it would at best make them lower prices and gain less money, on top of less supply.

Dunno how I got it mixed up. Would definitely be better, although still detrimental to tax them to sell. I guess we’d need more power to do that.

I’m not mad at china stuff still, but it’s true unless we supply self + have non taxed trade allies that can fill holes, it will be impactful. So, in that light 20% on all is too much on top of 60%. If anything, it is nuts the financial impact isn’t more.

I still say it’s wack to say tax cuts only benefit rich when all of the loss from them is related to tariffs.

-Smak

[j3lademaster]

Yeah, I guess it would at best make them lower prices and gain less money, on top of less supply.

Dunno how I got it mixed up. Would definitely be better, although still detrimental to tax them to sell. I guess weÂ’d need more power to do that.

IÂ’m not mad at china stuff still, but itÂ’s true unless we supply self + have non taxed trade allies that can fill holes, it will be impactful. So, in that light 20% on all is too much on top of 60%. If anything, it is nuts the financial impact isnÂ’t more.

I still say itÂ’s wack to say tax cuts only benefit rich when all of the loss from them is related to tariffs.

-SmakI'm all for tariffs in the right places. For instance, China puts heavy tariffs on luxury goods such as BMW, Ferraris, Fendi etc. The wealthy who care about their brands will pay the extra whatever to have their brands, but it doesn't affect inelastic goods(like steel) that will literally affect everyone, and disproportionately the poor. A very bad one was blocking Huawei. Huawei would have brought so many jobs and chinese money into the american economy WHILE giving consumers a third competitor to Apple and Samsung. If you really want to hurt China you don't do it by setting tariffs on them that affect yourself even more, you do it by stealing their business. Preventing Huawei from entering the US market was actually good for Xi(probably not the people of China though). And Trump can disguise those tariffs as 'look at how hard I am on China' while doing a favor for Xi. And the earlier part about me saying you can inject inflation with tariffs on inelastic goods in cases where you haven't replaced their manufacturing? Imagine it, the corporate tax cuts were in 2017 and the tariffs were in 2018.

What do the cuts of 2017 do? Imagine yourself, a decent salaryman taking home maybe... 3.5k biweekly after tax? little more than 7k/mo: 2k to your rent or mortgage depending when you bought and where you live, 1k for daycare, 2k for food, care payments electricity etc. How much do you have at the end of the day to invest and how much do you leave in the bank for emergencies? The average american has almost nothing in investments, so when Trump cut corporate taxes companies take this free extra money and buy back their own stocks, inflating their value with nothing backing it up in terms of improving their product/service, expanding etc. When a value can't be backed that's what we call a 'bubble'. You can look into how a money multiplier works and why it's bad on your own time if you want, I don't want to lose you here. Anyhoo, The top 1% already owned most of the stock market and after the buybacks to disproportionately boost investors and the 1%(remember, the salaryman can barely afford to invest), so now they own even more of the market, so in other words, assets.

In 2018 the tariffs were implemented on inelastic goods that affect everyone, causing inflation. The $2000 you left in your bank for emergencies yesterday has the spending power of $1400 now or what have you, but the 1% has their money tied up in assets, which inflates WITH the economy, effectively transfering that $600 from your emergency savings to the rich without you realizing.

This all caused one of the largest historical wealth transfers ever, and the elite keep us busy and divided with Haitians eating cats, woke tv shows(which admittedly is ****ing annoying) and trans shit that- let's be real- no sane person really gives two shits about.

But if you're in that $360k+ bracket and have been for a decent amount of time and you're paid in mostly RSU's as an older millenial to gen X with a few mil in investments, I can see the financial incentive to vote for Trump. Let's be real, social changes won't happen no matter who the president is so might as well vote for whoever gives you the tax cuts and uses the US deficit to Bull the market as much as possible. And if you aren't in that income bracket? idk, maybe you have convictions stronger than just money. Maybe abortion means that much to you, good for you. This is in no way to try to sway your vote, I'm sure you're already decided at this point, just telling the truth about the economy and why we're here(in my opinion anyway).

[ILLsmak]

I'm all for tariffs in the right places. For instance, China puts heavy tariffs on luxury goods such as BMW, Ferraris, Fendi etc. The wealthy who care about their brands will pay the extra whatever to have their brands, but it doesn't affect inelastic goods(like steel) that will literally affect everyone, and disproportionately the poor. A very bad one was blocking Huawei. Huawei would have brought so many jobs and chinese money into the american economy WHILE giving consumers a third competitor to Apple and Samsung. If you really want to hurt China you don't do it by setting tariffs on them that affect yourself even more, you do it by stealing their business. Preventing Huawei from entering the US market was actually good for Xi(probably not the people of China though). And Trump can disguise those tariffs as 'look at how hard I am on China' while doing a favor for Xi. And the earlier part about me saying you can inject inflation with tariffs on inelastic goods in cases where you haven't replaced their manufacturing? Imagine it, the corporate tax cuts were in 2017 and the tariffs were in 2018.

What do the cuts of 2017 do? Imagine yourself, a decent salaryman taking home maybe... 3.5k biweekly after tax? little more than 7k/mo: 2k to your rent or mortgage depending when you bought and where you live, 1k for daycare, 2k for food, care payments electricity etc. How much do you have at the end of the day to invest and how much do you leave in the bank for emergencies? The average american has almost nothing in investments, so when Trump cut corporate taxes companies take this free extra money and buy back their own stocks, inflating their value with nothing backing it up in terms of improving their product/service, expanding etc. When a value can't be backed that's what we call a 'bubble'. You can look into how a money multiplier works and why it's bad on your own time if you want, I don't want to lose you here. Anyhoo, The top 1% already owned most of the stock market and after the buybacks to disproportionately boost investors and the 1%(remember, the salaryman can barely afford to invest), so now they own even more of the market, so in other words, assets.

In 2018 the tariffs were implemented on inelastic goods that affect everyone, causing inflation. The $2000 you left in your bank for emergencies yesterday has the spending power of $1400 now or what have you, but the 1% has their money tied up in assets, which inflates WITH the economy, effectively transfering that $600 from your emergency savings to the rich without you realizing.

This all caused one of the largest historical wealth transfers ever, and the elite keep us busy and divided with Haitians eating cats, woke tv shows(which admittedly is ****ing annoying) and trans shit that- let's be real- no sane person really gives two shits about.

But if you're in that $360k+ bracket and have been for a decent amount of time and you're paid in mostly RSU's as an older millenial to gen X with a few mil in investments, I can see the financial incentive to vote for Trump. Let's be real, social changes won't happen no matter who the president is so might as well vote for whoever gives you the tax cuts and uses the US deficit to Bull the market as much as possible. And if you aren't in that income bracket? idk, maybe you have convictions stronger than just money. Maybe abortion means that much to you, good for you. This is in no way to try to sway your vote, I'm sure you're already decided at this point, just telling the truth about the economy and why we're here(in my opinion anyway).

Yea i am all for sharing ideas and opinions. I think the thing I feel is that wealth was transferring anyway. I imagine covid had a huge effect on that.

The tariff thing is interesting because not only are they changing the route of the tax money, which may or may not be good, but they are gaining tax on companies ( I assume all that america first 15% factors in, too, but i also imagine it will have loopholes) all while only marginally increasing the ‘tax burden,’ although i’d argue it’s more cost of living.

The numbers aren’t small, but if you compare that to our inflation level, we are getting battered way more than that. Obviously both at once is sketchy.

Also i think the trump stuff was meant to last 8 years and maybe longer. I think his theory is good even though it seems most of his policies directly benefit… himself. The thing is, since he has his own wealth tied up in the country, he is making decisions that are ostensibly good for the country, opposed to people who are salaried by foreign govt speaking fees and book sales. I do think that stock buybacks are an issue, and while the rich getting richer doesn’t bother me so much, the transfer does. I believe in the republican ideal of generate wealth, cut regulation, and i think if they do it right, weaving in tariffs could be good.

It’s def a long term plan and that’s the problem with our country atm, we have like max 8 years then we go back the other way. Only certain things get kept, which is also our political system in action, but sometimes it’s more about not having a super majority than consensus.

-Smak

[dankok8]

The point of tariffs is that assuming they are high enough to work, the companies that produce stuff in China will move their manufacturing facilities back to the US to avoid the tariffs. This will increase the price of those consumer goods but it creates many jobs for people. Not having tariffs to protect your economy against countries with cheaper labor is economic suicide. Having tariffs is common sense.

[Real Men Wear Green]

The point of tariffs is that assuming they are high enough to work, the companies that produce stuff in China will move their manufacturing facilities back to the US to avoid the tariffs. This will increase the price of those consumer goods but it creates many jobs for people. Not having tariffs to protect your economy against countries with cheaper labor is economic suicide. Having tariffs is common sense. They have to be used intelligently. Last time Trump had to hand the farmers 28 billion dollars (https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2020/01/21/trump-tariff-aid-to-farmers-cost-more-than-us-nuclear-forces/)to help them out as a direct result. If we have to do something like that again except on an even bigger scale the "solution" may be worse than the problem.

[Media Moderator]

When I have time I'd like to look more into this but the source is a little suspect. Not saying it's false data but I'm not taking their figures for face value just yet

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) is a non-profit, liberal think tank that works on state and federal tax policy issues.

[ZenMaster]

Trump discuess tariffs for the first 20 minutes here, main point being that he'll put them so high it won't be possible for the companies in question to carry the cost on to the consumer.


https://youtu.be/hJhczIWILv8

[Real Men Wear Green]

You can hit something with a tariff so heavy that it makes business impossible but when you do the opposing company dies the same thing to is in retaliation. That's why we had to bail out the farmers. Smart, targeted tariffs could begood for us but Trump isn't the type to work out the butterfly effect.

[Hey Yo]

You can hit something with a tariff so heavy that it makes business impossible but when you do the opposing company dies the same thing to is in retaliation. That's why we had to bail out the farmers. Smart, targeted tariffs could begood for us but Trump isn't the type to work out the butterfly effect.

btw.... the guy interviewing Trump above stated to the audience that Harris was invited to do a sit down session with him for a similar Q&A and she refused.

Trump answered economic questions for over an hour while your girl chickened out.

[Real Men Wear Green]

btw.... the guy interviewing Trump above stated to the audience that Harris was invited to do a sit down session with him for a similar Q&A and she refused.

Trump answered economic questions for over an hour while your girl chickened out.
She's doing an interview with FOX News at 6. You are beyond tedious.

edit: I forgot to mention that Trump has completely run from another debate, since you want to talk about who's chicken.

[Hey Yo]

She's doing an interview with FOX News at 6. You are beyond tedious.

edit: I forgot to mention that Trump has completely run from another debate, since you want to talk about who's chicken.

It was specific sit down to talk about her economic plan and she refused cause we both know there's no chance in hell should could do that for over an hour. Cause all she says is handouts that wouldn't get passed.

Now, since Obama had to shame black men for thinking for themselves, she's promised to do more to legalize pot and give 1 million black men entrepreneurs a forgiven $20,000 loan. Why is she saying black men and pot smoking go hand-in-hand?

Give $50,000 here (never would pass) give $20,000 there (which also would never pass) just give away all this free money that the U.S doesn't have. No wonder she doesn't wanna talk about an economic plan.

[ShawkFactory]

Both candidates have ducked situations that wouldn't well suit them. Why are we devolving into discussing who is chicken and who isn't instead of the actual topic at hand?

[Real Men Wear Green]

It was specific sit down to talk about her economic plan and she refused cause we both know there's no chance in hell should could do that for over an hour. Cause all she says is handouts that wouldn't get passed.

Now, since Obama had to shame black men for thinking for themselves, she's promised to do more to legalize pot and give 1 million black men entrepreneurs a forgiven $20,000 loan. Why is she saying black men and pot smoking go hand-in-hand?

Give $50,000 here (never would pass) give $20,000 there (which also would never pass) just give away all this free money that the U.S doesn't have. No wonder she doesn't wanna talk about an economic plan.

I actually don't share the stupid right wing opinion that Harris is stupid. I'm certain that she could get coaches up for an interview about her economic policy the same way she was coached up to beat the hell out of Trump for a debate. You guys are silly talking about how Harris is scared of an interview while ignoring the fact that Trump won't do another debate after he got that thorough ass-kicking.

[Norcaliblunt]

Why doesn’t big bad anti deep state Trump just eliminate the federal income tax?


Because……..??????