The primary “appeal” of Donald Trump’s candidacy, we are told, is that he is a businessman, not a politician, that he has created jobs, whereas Hillary Clinton is a “politician” who has never created a single job or met a payroll.
Donald Trump is the outsider, the change agent, versus the insider, while Hillary Clinton is “the Establishment” because she has spent 30 years as a public servant.
Setting aside the fact that Trump is the worst caricature of a businessman, who, records now show, has built up the fortune he inherited by exploiting employees, investors, contractors, the courts and the tax code ($915 million loss in 1995!) and the fact that Hillary Clinton, while she has spent her life in public service working to better the lives of others, has only briefly (as a U.S. senator and in her campaign for the presidency) been a politician, there is a difference between public service and politics, and between business and government.
Trump says that because he is such a brilliant businessman, he will be the best “jobs creator God ever made.”
He promises to bring back the manufacturing jobs that were lost 20 years ago, and says he will restore jobs in the coal mines, oil rigs and steel mills.
How? He says he will tear up trade agreements (that would start a trade war as countries retaliate by imposing tariffs on American goods); tax goods brought in by an American company, eliminate corporate taxes (the biggest, most profitable companies don’t pay any tax anyway, and no business pays the “nominal” 35 percent tax rate), cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and eliminate the estate tax. Trump’s fantastical promise of 4% annual growth in GDP that he pulls out of thin air would likely only spur crippling inflation.
This is, as Hillary Clinton put it, “Trumped-Up Trickle-Down”, the George W. Bush economy on steroids, and we saw how that played out.
Economists have said that Trump’s economic plan would balloon the national debt by $5 trillion, cost 3.5 million jobs and very likely exacerbate income inequality and plunge the U.S. into another recession.
Trump has boasted that because he best knows how the system is rigged, he is best qualified to change it — but nothing that he has proposed, in tax policy or campaign finance — would benefit anyone other than himself.
Hillary Clinton’s jobs plan has a lot to do with economic justice and sustainable economic growth: paid parental leave, raising the federal minimum wage to $15, eliminating college debt, clawing back tax incentives from companies that use “inversion” to avoid taxes, promoting the rise of clean energy industry and advanced manufacturing and retraining displaced workers, easing the way for small businesses and entrepreneurs, investing $275 billion in infrastructure and billions more for medical research such as combating Alzheimer’s disease (see fact sheet,
And yes, she pays for it by eliminating tax dodges corporations use and raising taxes on the wealthiest, “because they have made all the gains in the economy… Broad-based, inclusive growth is what we need in America, not more advantages for people at the very top.”
To which Trump replied, “Typical politician. All talk, no action. Sounds good, doesn’t work.”
But according to economists, Hillary Clinton’s proposals would likely create 10 million jobs, and that means with the increased revenue because of fairer tax policies and getting the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share, the national debt would be reduced and prosperity would be more widely shared.
And there is a very great difference between being a businessman and a public servant.
A public servant has to consider all constituencies, with competing interests, not just self-interest, and a longer view beyond the next quarter.
Donald Trump made it clear, himself, to justify how “smart” he is to avoid paying taxes (which is probably why he is being audited). He has said that he earned $650 million last year, but has boasted about paying zero taxes or avoiding paying taxes. “That makes me smart.”
“So if he’s paid zero, that means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools or health,” Clinton replied.
And if he stiffed workers by refusing to pay them and challenging them to bring him to court, and stiffed investors by declaring bankruptcies, and called himself the “King of Debt”? Well, he says, “Which our country should do, too.”
Responding to a New York Times report that Trump took advantage of his business failures in the 1990s to claim a $915 million loss in 1995 — enough to shield him from federal taxes for 18 years — his campaign stated, “The incredible skills Mr. Trump has shown in building his business are the skills we need to rebuild this country.”
Heaven forbid a President Trump treat the country as he has his businesses, his workers, his contractors, his investors.
