opinion

Stop the presses! Trump tells the truth

The Winter White House, Mar-a-Lago, is a place where Americans may pay $400,000 to join and then another $14,000 a year to mix with the president, other superrich, and add to the president’s personal coffers. There, Trump felt at home enough to announce to his companions, “You all just got a lot richer.” He spoke the truth.

I said a place where rich Americans hang out, but you don’t have to be a U.S. citizen to be a Mar-a-Lago member; you do have to be “personally introduced by a current member.” (Some of us remember what that was a code for.)

For someone who tells an average of between 5.5 and 9 lies a day since taking office, telling the truth is an aberration, especially on a big issue.

Trump’s cronies among the top 1 percent or higher will surely be richer next year, thanks to the Republican Tax Fraud Bill. The fraud is that they justify it by claiming it will help regular people, which it won’t. Unless “Voodoo Economics” starts to work, when it never has before.

When I last wrote about that bill, I lamented the huge deficit – and, consequently, national-debt, increase – along with the effect of the bill that makes the exorbitantly rich exponentially richer. “The debt increase is just one feature of the tax plan. Its overriding effect will be to continue the push of income up the ladder – from the poor and middle to the rich. Income disparity is worse than ever in this country, and growing exponentially.” (“Congress’s bill is tax fraud,” Nov. 30, 2017.)

But that was when, inexplicably, congressional Republicans had agreed that the top individual rate would remain 39.6 percent for those in the income stratosphere. Naively, I thought that the superrich were maybe content with the plunder already inflicted by the bill. Perhaps they agreed to maintaining the tax brackets as eyewash and cover for their servant senators. And the top rate of 39.6 percent was a boon anyway – under Eisenhower it was 91 percent, under Reagan 50 percent. (Surprisingly, back then people could be found to run big companies at a salary less than the budget of some countries.)

Since then, the current bill has been made crueler, passed both houses of Congress, and been signed by the president. Remember when we had hope that some Republican senators – McCain, Collins, Flake, Sasse, Corker, even Portman – might vote their conscience? Any Republican with that inconvenient accessory would shrink from approving a bill to enrich the enriched by enslaving us all, and future generations, to crushing debt. But they all fell in line, forfeiting any “redemption” they may have earlier sought. As did our local congressmen, who even trotted out the long-disproved “save the family farm” canard to justify doubling the estate tax exemption to $22 million. Some farm.

Even before the last-minute changes, the Tax Fraud Bill already gave huge benefits to the ultra-wealthy and their children, helping create an inherited upper-class aristocracy. Something we fought a revolution to eliminate in 1776, lest we forget.

Of course, it will also benefit the Grifter-in-Chief and his family, perhaps as much as many billions over the years. Though we really don’t know how much because he flaunts his wealth but hides its sources.

But I was naive. When the focus was on other parts of the legislation – corporate taxes, among other things – something magical happened in the all-Republican conference committee. The corporate tax rate, now 35 percent (too high for many reasons), which was to be decreased to 20 percent, suddenly became 21 percent, allegedly “creating” money to slash the billionaires’ personal tax rate by 2.6 percent.

The extra 2.6 percent was just a “tip” to those, who thanks to the overwhelming influence of money on politics, already own this country. Maybe just a tip of an extra $400,000 or so. I’m sure they can think of a use for that. Unless Mar-a-Lago doubles its initiation fees again, as it did when Trump was elected.

So Trump’s bragging about how he and his formerly conservative party had helped his Mar-a-Largo cronies was true. The tax changes will vastly increase their wealth, with an extra 2.6 percent “tip” to boot – by vastly increasing our national debt. Next, Republicans will blame the “debt” they created for a need to reduce Social Security and Medicare. Just watch.

Mark P. Painter served as a judge for 30 years, is the author of six books, and is a member of the Enquirer’s Board of Contributors.