“It’s the economy money stupid”

Forget the noise and setbacks from Russia-gate, repealing Obamacare, white nationalists, North Korea, and inflammatory and inexplicable tweets. Despite these brouhaha’s their consequences will be judged as paltry in the big picture. That is because the mother of all destruction has been unveiled and I believe will also be passed largely untouched.  When it is, it will be extolled as a huge financial boon and an example of DJT’s skills at doing a deal.  Yet the president’s tax proposal will eventually turn the economy of the U.S. into one that resembles Greece.

Lauded as tax reform, the reality is that it is simply massive tax cuts followed by massive deficits in the future.

Not realizing the zero sum math, the average person willingly accepts the hocus-pocus and is more than happy to accept any tax cut even though it means a select few will be getting a huge one and the money will have to be paid back by everyone in the future.  The assumptions in DJT’s tax proposal are reminiscent of those backing his publicly traded company, which ultimately…

For those who think it’s DOA or won’t retain much of it’s current form, please hearken back to the surprising election results on November 9.  The main tenets of this plan are all lined up to be passed.  At heart the Trump administration and platform are died in wool Republican policies, or I should say post-Reagan Republican policies.  Most significantly: lower taxes, higher deficits, and the suspension of disbelief required of trickle-down economics.  Well not a disbelief but really an indifference towards deficits or an excuse for lower taxes at the tippy-top.

Despite mentions of push back and insurgency in the Republican Party, it’s really just been minor bickering and the causes were never as consequential, or seemingly less controversial (tax cuts for all w/ massive savings for a few not-so-stealthily hidden).  Every other policy is meaningless and negotiable next to tax cuts, and all former deficit hawks will sheepishly stay silent.  Everything is riding on this and it will pass because it’s all about the money – the only thing that matters.

Borrow now, pay back with interest later. For the next few years things will be good, then we’ll be buried in a debt hole too deep to dig out of.

Once this budget is enacted it will be the end of the U.S. as we know it.  In addition to the crushing deficits, the increasing inequality it engenders will cause the American electorate to vote in Bernie Sanders-like programs en masse in either the 2020 or 2024 elections.  While the only way to pay for it will seem to be taxing the rich, all their money will be offshore and untouchable by then.

What does the future look like?  Well I mentioned Greece in the title, but here’s a recent anecdote from another once great empire:

“The past decade or so has not been kind to Rome. Garbage piles up in the piazzas. The parks look like littered Iowa cornfields. The city’s sputtering economy hemorrhages jobs.”

Greece or Rome, all it takes to fall is a single emperor, …and a gullible public.