Tax Reform, Relief, Whatever

Moving on, White House style, we are now confronting the prospect of tax reform. I suppose that those of us who cringe whenever we hear a Republican use the phrase “tax reform” ought take some comfort from the obvious disarray in right wing policy circles. Tax reform is already looking like a re-run of health care reform. We all know that Republicans never actually mean “reform” they always mean “cut”, but there are hopeful signs this time through the process. Perhaps reform is a possibility.

Maybe not.

The problem with being an utter incompetent when it comes to sophisticated governance is that complicated stuff is, well, complicated. You can’t just go and bully a few people and get what you want. Tax reform is a complicated problem, especially so in America’s antiquated legislative milieu. There are so many opportunities for well-healed interest groups to twist legislation into the kind of contorted, incomprehensible, and special interest pandering mess that is our current tax system. Untwisting the tax pretzel will require deft, well informed, and strategically driven legislative leadership. Which is not, I think, a key asset of Trump. He is more of an ill informed, inept, elephant of a negotiator whose primary skill is to threaten or cajole, and who then quits abruptly if he can’t get his own way quickly.

Such was his approach on health care. And so far such is his approach on tax reform.

What do we know about the great Trump tax cut?

Not much.

As usual is seems to be a made-for-headlines artifact rather than an actual policy. We don’t know who is working on it, although this weekend our Treasury Secretary appeared to know something about the plan because he told an IMF conference that the plan would involve some short term budget busting. That’s alright though because he assured everyone that in the long term the tax cuts would pay for themselves.

What’s the correct way to react to this absurdity?

OMG!?

Apparently there are no grown ups in the modern Republican party. They keep trotting out the drivel that tax cuts “pay for themselves”. Which they do only in right wing fantasy land. Here on earth: not so much. This is not even controversial. Look at the Reagan and Bush tax cuts and then take a look at the [modest] Clinton tax increase. Investment failed to budge after the tax decreases, economic growth didn’t get a jolt, and the tax cuts simply piled up Federal deficits. Conversely, or perversely depending on your point of view, everything perked up nicely after the tax increases. So we have actual, real-life evidence: tax cuts do not pay for themselves. The fact that we have to to say this is depressing. Facts matter.

But it does give us insight into Trump world.

He, and his key advisors, seem to live in a fact fchallenged time warp where current or contemporary is defined as anything in vogue in Reagan era Republican thinking. Subsequent history and evidence is simply either ignored or never taken on board to begin with.

Its all very old fashioned and increasingly irrelevant in our new economy.

Trump is fighting a modern policy war with the equivalent, not of the old Maginot line, but with something much earlier. He seems to live in a different era and is remarkably ill-informed about the modern economy. His tax plan, what we know of it, reflects his obsolescence.

Do we need to worry?

Of course. Trump is a Clouseau clown bumbling about but with a difference: he might actually break something important. Worse: he doesn’t know enough to know if he’s breaking something.

Then again, maybe we don’t need to worry: Trump hasn’t — still — filled any of the key tax policy positions in the Treasury Department. Presumably this is because he thinks it isn’t complicated and so he doesn’t need thoughtful advice or analysis.

Or maybe he simply doesn’t know those positions exist.

Or something.

You can get quite a headache trying to explain Trump. It’s probably safer not to try.