Response to Jugglers and Comics

(See: Just Above Sunset: Jugglers and Comics)

With money seeming to be at the center of everything we do in this country, you'd think we'd all have a better idea of how it works.

(And yes, I'm including me in that. Although I probably could do my taxes by myself, I've always had somebody else do them for me, since the process only makes me angry, and I'd only screw it up.) 

Strangely, though, polls have shown that Americans think Republicans are more trusted than Democrats at handling the economy, but statistics seem to contradict that opinion. In their 2012 book, "Bulls Bears and the Ballot Box: How the Performance of OUR Presidents Has Impacted YOUR Wallet", authors Bob Deitrick and Lew Goldfarb looked at the numbers behind presidents Herbert Hoover through George W. Bush, and ranked them the following way, from most healthy economy to least:

1st  ***** JFK/LBJ (D) 

2nd  ***** Clinton (D) 

3rd  ***** FDR (D) 

4th  ***** Ike (R) 

5th  ***** Reagan (R) 

6th  ***** Truman (D) 

7th  ***** Carter (D) 

8th  ***** HW Bush (R) 

9th  ***** Nixon/Ford (R) 

10th ***** W Bush (R) 

11th ***** Hoover (R)

As Adam Hartung, reviewing the book for Forbes, learned from reading this book back then:

• Personal disposable income has grown nearly 6 times more under Democratic presidents 

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown 7 times more under Democratic presidents 

• Corporate profits have grown over 16% more per year under Democratic presidents (they actually declined under Republicans by an average of 4.53%/year) 

• Average annual compound return on the stock market has been 18 times greater under Democratic presidents (If you invested $100k for 40 years of Republican administrations you had $126k at the end, if you invested $100k for 40 years of Democrat administrations you had $3.9M at the end) 

• Republican presidents added 2.5 times more to the national debt than Democratic presidents 

• The two times the economy steered into the ditch (Great Depression and Great Recession) were during Republican, laissez faire administrations

Okay, now, if you go back even further, back to 2004, before a serious run for the White House was much more than a twinkle in his eye, guess who apparently knew all this already?

"In many cases, I probably identify more as Democrat," Trump told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in a 2004 interview. "It just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans. Now, it shouldn't be that way. But if you go back, I mean it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats. ...But certainly we had some very good economies under Democrats, as well as Republicans. But we've had some pretty bad disaster under the Republicans."

(Trump also said this, in a separate interview with Wolf: "Hillary's always surrounded herself with very good people. I think Hillary would do a good job". Yes, someone is bound to bring that up again this year, although given the track record, nobody will notice.)

Fast forward to Monday of this week, with Trump releasing some specifics of his tax plan, which ends up sounding just like an example of your average Republic thinking! It's nice he's finally giving us facts, because facts were what exactly we needed to nail this guy's shoes to the floor.

He's been promising to his middle-class followers, at least those who would listen, that they're going to love his tax plan because it will lower taxes for the middle class, and it will more or less stick it to the really rich guys.

When we get to see his plan, we find that the net result of his plan is to cut taxes for the rich, although a larger chunk of people at the bottom even get to pay no taxes at all.

(I'm against that last part. I think everybody who makes over $1,000 a year should pay taxes, even if it's just $10 or so, just so everybody, even the poor, can call themselves "American Taxpayers", and that those higher on the ladder can't give them grief for not paying taxes.)

So back when he was not running for president, and was free to look at things objectively, he observed that Republican ways of handling the economy were, maybe counter-intuitively, worse for the country than the Democratic ways, but now? Now, he's running for president, as a Republican, fishing for Republican votes in Republican primaries. So screw objectivity and what works! Now, you walk like a Republican!

When Trump hears his plan cuts tax revenues too much, so we probably won't be able to have our government do what it needs to do, his answer sounds like the same old Republican line, but with a Trumpian twist -- the revenues will be fantastic because the economy will be incredible, due to some phenomenal things he will do to bring our jobs back home from overseas!

I suspect that Trump, like all those Republicans before him, is not all that concerned about lost tax revenues -- since the government is probably too big and spends too much anyway -- which is why they all think the country can afford to let all the little, poor people pay fewer or even no taxes, too, along with the rich. He says his plan is "revenue neutral", and to those who claim it isn't, there's always that mushy part that takes a leap of faith to believe in, the part where things magically come together, just because people the world over respect The Donald.

You know what this is? This is Californians going for Arnold Schwarzenegger all over again! Okay, yeah, the guy has no experience, but the point is that he's famous and has an outrageous persona, but the important thing is, he doesn't talk like a politician! Whatever happened to The Arnold, anyway? Let's bring him back!

Oh, wait! Never mind. I forgot!

Didn't someone figure out that Arnold Schwarzenegger was really born in Kenya?