A Comprehensive Analysis of Donald Trump’s Economic Lunacy
It’s time to stop pretending that Trump would be good for the economy. In reality, his economic plans are exceedingly stupid and destructive
For months, I’ve heard Internet liberals repeat the same old Trump attacks over and over again. HATEFUL. RACIST. SEXIST. These terms have long since become meaningless epithets, and these types of attacks no longer have any persuasive effect whatsoever. So yes, Donald Trump is a hateful, racist, sexist, narcissistic fuckwad… but if I’m being completely honest, very often I’m also a hateful, racist, sexist, narcissistic fuckwad, so I really can’t attack him on these points! With that being said, it’s time to leave all the stupid little buzzwords behind and get serious. Let the economics begin! (Warning: This post is not for the “faint of mind”… we’re getting into deep and detailed economic policy analysis)
Donald Trump’s economic proposals are patently RIDICULOUS. Of course, this should surprise nobody. After all, Trump is a less-than-mediocre businessman, at best. Anyone who knows anything about economics knows that Donald Trump knows jack shit about economics. And yet, he’s fooled his legions of cultish supporters into thinking that he’s some economic guru who will work his deal-making magic, take our jobs back, solve the national debt, deliver infinity percent growth, and fix everything! And America will live happily ever after, thanks to our lord and savior Donald Trump!
To any Trump supporter reading this right now… if you are willing to listen to logic and reason, keep on reading. If you are immune to logic and reason… also keep on reading, because I’m going to relish making you angry. Angry Trump supporters are the funniest little things I’ve ever seen! To everyone else… ready your forks and knives, because I’m about to ROAST Donald Trump medium well and serve his dumbfuck ideas on a silver platter. This is gonna be one YUUUUUGE meal.
On Fiscal Policy and the National Debt
For those who don’t know, fiscal policy encompasses taxes and spending — in other words, the federal budget. This creates annual deficits or surpluses, which can either increase or decrease the national debt. Trump has not released any detailed spending proposals (what a surprise), so we’ll analyze his tax proposal first.
Trump’s tax proposal is one of the few detailed policy plans that he has released to date. In it, he calls for massive tax cuts for everyone, including the rich. Especially the rich. This is in direct contradiction to his rhetoric on the campaign trail, where he has consistently promised to raise taxes on the rich. And yet, he wants to slash the top marginal income tax rate (which applies to income earned above $400,000) from 39.6% to 25%. Donald Trump, I ask you, how can you raise taxes on the rich by cutting taxes on the rich? And no, the Laffer Curve will not save you here, because we’ve cut taxes on the rich so much that we’re now on the left side of the curve. In addition, according to an analysis of average (not marginal) tax rates by the Tax Policy Center, Trump’s plan gives the middle class a 5% cut, while giving the top 1 percent a 17.5% cut. So much for being fair to the middle class…
In addition, Trump constantly touts that under his tax plan, anyone making below $25,000 won’t have to pay any income tax. Wow! So Trump really does care about poor people, right? WRONG. Most of these people already pay little to no income tax anyway… remember Romney’s 47% gaffe? Turns out it’s true! So in reality, Trump’s plan functionally changes pretty much nothing for low-income people. If we really want to help the poor through tax reform, then we should eliminate goodies for the rich, such as the mortgage interest deduction (which primarily benefits wealthy homeowners). The savings could then go towards expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit (which primarily benefits low-income workers). Of course, explaining these proposals to voters is BOOOOOOOORING. Trump finds it much easier to just lie out his ass and say, “my tax plan is great, really, it is! It’s the best tax plan and it will make America great again.” Hooray for substance-free campaigning!
Trump goes around pretending to be populist, pretending like he cares about the “little guy”, pretending like he’ll take on the rich… when in reality his tax plan is nothing but a massive gift to the rich. And we all know how tax cuts for the rich trickle down to everyone else!
Now that I’m done ripping Trump’s tax plan to shreds, let’s move on to… JUST KIDDING! You thought I was done? I’m getting to the best part — it’s time to talk about the budget deficit!
I’ve compiled three different analyses from think tanks across the political spectrum, to get a full picture of the impact of Trump’s plan. The Tax Foundation (right-leaning) estimates that Trump’s plan will reduce federal revenue (and thus increase the debt) by 10 trillion over the next decade. This is even after taking into account the economic growth generated by the plan. A similar analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (centrist) estimates that Trump’s plan will increase the debt by 12 trillion over the next decade. Finally, the Tax Policy Center (left-leaning) pegs the debt increase at 9.5 trillion over the next decade.
Let’s use $10 trillion as the benchmark for the rest of this analysis. That’s an extra $1 trillion annually that Trump’s plan will add to the deficit, on top of the deficit we’re already running! The federal government is projected to run a $500 billion deficit in fiscal year 2016 ($474 billion, to be exact). Trump’s tax plan will increase this annual deficit to $1.5 trillion. That is higher than any Obama-era deficit.
Here’s the kicker… Trump has promised to pay the national debt off in 8 years. Donald, Donald, Donald… of ALL the ridiculous campaign promises you’ve made, this is by far the funniest. I will admit I nearly shat myself laughing when I read it! In all seriousness though, it is physically impossible to pay off the national debt with Trump’s shit-for-brains plan. Every indication has shown that Trump’s massive tax cuts will also massively increase the debt (what a big fucking surprise).
Of course, all of these analyses examine tax revenue only, while holding spending equal. Here’s where Trump supporters will leap to his defense… Allen, you stupid liberal, Trump plans to slash spending as well! He’ll “cut so much, your head will spin!” Yeah… real specific. As I mentioned before, Trump has not released any detailed spending plans, so in order to get an idea of what he wants to do with federal spending, we’ll have to go off of his campaign promises (though Trump’s promises are notoriously worth jack shit, so they have to be taken with a grain of salt).
Remember folks, Trump’s tax plan creates a $1.5 trillion annual deficit, meaning he has to cut $1.5 trillion of annual spending in order to balance the budget. So let’s go step-by-step through every component of federal spending (based on fiscal year 2015) and see what Trump has to say about each of them. Do his spending proposals add up? Find out after this commercial break!
And we’re back! Let’s get right into it. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid collectively make up around 50% of the budget. On Social Security and Medicare (the major old-age entitlements), Trump has consistently promised not to cut them. On Medicaid (which is healthcare for poor people), Trump is very, very conflicted. On one hand, he has promised to block-grant the funding to states in order to reduce federal spending. By all indications, this would result in a lot of people losing coverage. At the same time, Trump has promised on his website that, in terms of Medicaid, “those who want health care coverage can have it”. Here it seems like he wants to expand Medicaid. So really, we have no clue whether Trump will increase or decrease Medicaid spending… analyses are all over the place because of the vagueness of his proposals. Suffice to say that on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (50% of the budget), Trump has no coherent plans to cut spending.
On military spending (16% of the budget), Trump has been all over the place. First he wanted to cut it. Now he wants to increase it. Make a fucking decision, Trump! Then again, this is to be expected. After all, Trump flip-flops even more than Hillary Clinton! Now, it’s time for a reality check… at the start of this budget analysis, we had a $1.5 trillion annual deficit. Now, we’re 2/3rds of the way through the budget… and it’s still not even remotely balanced! The deficit is still $1.5 trillion!
Alright, last 1/3rd of the budget. Let’s take a look. Net interest on the debt makes up 6% of the budget, and is required spending. As long as there’s a national debt, there will be net interest on that debt. This is an expenditure that physically cannot be cut. Next, safety net programs (commonly known as welfare) make up 10% of the budget. In dollar terms, that’s $362 billion a year. This includes food stamps, TANF handouts, unemployment benefits, etc. Trump has repeatedly stated that he wants to cut welfare, and if he wins the presidency, he’ll have a Republican Senate and House that agrees with him on this issue. Realistically, they could probably cut $50–100 billion a year without hurting the economy too much, but let’s be very generous and assume that Trump can cut $150 billion a year off of welfare (that’s nearly half of annual welfare spending). Okay, there’s a start. Now the deficit is $1.35 trillion!
The last component of the budget (less than 20%) is about $700 billion annually, and it supports a grab bag of government services. On a pie chart, this miscellaneous spending looks like a lot of really thin little slices. One of the slices is veteran’s benefits ($150 billion a year) — which Trump has promised to beef up, but I’ll be generous and not count that extra spending in the deficit. Another slice is infrastructure spending, which Trump wants to increase big time. He has proposed a 5-year, 1 trillion dollar infrastructure plan. But, because I’m still feeling generous, I also won’t count this in the deficit.
What about the other misc slices? The EPA ($8 billion a year) and the Department of Education ($73 billion a year) are the only slices that Trump has specifically stated he will scrap, never mind the consequences. What other nationally important agencies does he want to destroy? FDA? NASA? NIH? No matter how many of these tiny little budget slices he removes, the budget will NOT balance. With that being said, let’s be impossibly generous (yet again) and assume that Trump cuts out $350 billion (that’s fully half of the $700 billion annual misc spending). This will likely trash the economy, but let’s ignore that, too! The deficit stands at $1 trillion annually, and we’ve now finished analyzing the entire budget.
Here’s where Trump supporters will again leap to his defense… Allen, you stupid liberal, what about waste, fraud, and abuse (WFA)? There’s WFA in every government program. Trump will end ALL the WFA and that will balance the budget! Well, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) routinely audits government spending, and estimates that total government-wide WFA amounts to roughly $125 billion annually. Of course, this possibly underestimates the real amount of WFA, so we’ll again be very generous and say that Trump can eliminate $200 billion of WFA annually.
And with that, our comprehensive budget analysis has come to a close. The FINAL TRUMP DEFICIT stands at $800 billion. That is almost twice the current deficit, and it doesn’t even take into account Trump’s plans to increase veteran’s benefits and infrastructure spending. In addition, it incorporates $200 billion in savings from eliminating WFA, as well as $500 billion in cuts to welfare and misc spending. These massive spending cuts will seriously harm the economy, and will negate any positive economic consequences from the tax cuts… but we’re ignoring all of that for the sake of simplicity!
We can console ourselves with the fact that, if Trump is elected president, his boneheaded plans on taxes and spending will never pass through Congress. Now, Trump’s supporters will inevitably say that he’ll “make a deal” and compromise with Congress to get a great budget! Here’s what I have to say to that… if you’re trying to negotiate for a lower budget deficit, you do NOT start negotiations by proposing to increase the deficit.
Of course, my analysis has been incredibly generous to Trump. In all likelihood, deficits under President Trump would be much more than $800 billion annually, with the national debt exploding as a result. And Trump has some downright dangerous ideas about dealing with the national debt.
In a May 5th CNBC interview, when asked about paying back the debt, Trump said that “if the economy crashed you could make a deal” and “pay back with discounts”. This is a common tactic in the business world known as a “haircut”. For instance, if I owe you $100, but we settle on a deal in which I only have to pay you back $75, then you’ve just taken a 25% haircut on the loan. Sucks for you! In essence, haircuts allow people to partially cancel debt.
Here’s the thing… Trump has a long history of wasting large amounts of borrowed money on failed ventures, and then gaming Chapter 11 bankruptcy law in order to make his creditors take massive haircuts on their loans. In this way, Trump was able to cancel most of his debts. Ever wonder why Trump’s FOUR company bankruptcies aren’t reflected in his current net worth? It’s because he saddled his creditors with the losses, while he himself got off relatively scot-free.
Now, I will be the first to admit, that’s a sensible business strategy! Why pay off your debts in full when you can cheat your creditors and just pay half? Of course, a competent businessman wouldn’t have to resort to Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the first place… seriously, what kind of idiot goes bankrupt running a casino? But that’s beside the point. Evidently, Trump believes that he can pull the same shit on our national debt. This is the problem with Trump and his supporters. They believe that you can simply “run the government like a business”, even though that is LITERALLY NOT AT ALL HOW THE GOVERNMENT FUCKING WORKS.
Sovereign debt is very, VERY different from private debt. You cannot simply use haircuts to reduce the national debt. No matter how good your “deal-making skills” are, there is NO reason for US creditors to accept anything less than full repayment on their Treasury bonds. US debt is currently the safest investment in the world, and it’s because we’ve always paid our debts back in full. Basically, America has a debt reputation even better than the Lannisters! However, if Trump were to come along and say “hey creditors, we’ll only give you 80 cents on every dollar”… there’s one word for that — DEFAULT.
This would destroy international confidence in the safety of US debt, send interest rates sky-rocketing across the board, and precipitate a global economic meltdown. I’m not joking. It’s dangerous to even threaten default. And Trump basically blundered around and casually threatened default without even understanding the true consequences of his words. Trump, you have to listen to me. There is NO SUCH THING as a Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the national debt. You may have been able to stiff your creditors back when you were busy running four companies into the ground, but you CAN’T do that to holders of US sovereign debt.
And… it gets even better! Just a couple days later, after his words sent financial markets into panic mode, Trump went ahead and declared that the US would never default because we print money. First of all, the Federal Reserve prints money, and acts independently of the government. Presidents cannot just order the Fed to print more money. Secondly, while money-printing could technically work, it’s an incredibly risky and dangerous way of funding the debt. This is because reckless money-printing could result in crippling inflation. Needless to say, Trump’s money-printing plans didn’t do much to calm the markets.
Frankly, it should be pretty clear by now that Trump’s ideas are a complete fucking joke. However, now that he’s the GOP presumptive nominee, we as a country are (sadly) obligated to take his ideas seriously. So in conclusion, extensive analysis shows that Trump wants to slash taxes by $1 trillion a year, and he has no goddamn clue how he’s gonna come up with enough spending cuts to balance that out. His utterly nonsensical plan will massively balloon the budget deficit and the national debt, and he would then proceed to try to solve the national debt with haircuts and money-printing. In essence, Trump’s plans will ruin us financially and turn us into the next Greece. #MakeAmericaGreeceAgain
On Tariffs, Trade, and the Manufacturing Sector
International trade is critical to the US economy. In 2014, trade (that is, exports + imports) made up 30% of US GDP. That’s nearly a third of the economy! Now, along comes Donald Trump, with some idiotic protectionist policies that would RUIN our international trade. Trump famously proposed a 45% tariff on Chinese imports during one of the GOP debates. That is one of the dumbest ideas he’s ever had, and here’s why… any tariff on imports would just be passed along to US consumers, with prices rising across the board (since we import so much shit from China). This would only further squeeze the middle class. In addition, if we slap a tariff on China, China will retaliate with tariffs of their own. This would spark a trade war that would unnecessarily harm American manufacturers and exporters. That’s why it’s so ironic that Trump promises to protect US manufacturing and the middle class, because in reality his tariff proposal would hurt both groups and tank the economy.
When asked to defend his dumbass tariff, he said that it was just a threat, in order to stop China from screwing us over with currency devaluations. On this point, the economics get complicated. In the past three years, the value of the Chinese yuan has indeed fallen against the dollar. However, the Chinese government may not be manually devaluing the yuan, as Trump suggests. The yuan may simply be falling for other reasons (such as the current strength of the dollar). Indeed, multiple indications show that China’s central bank is actually trying to prop up the yuan. In light of these facts, Trump’s tariff threat makes ABSOLUTELY ZERO FUCKING SENSE.
In any case, the yuan is falling, and according to Trump’s logic, this kills American jobs. In a simple model, this is because a falling yuan makes Chinese exports cheaper and American exports more expensive, which hurts our exporting industries. However, the real world is a lot more complicated than simple models. Job shifts are more based on long-term economic and demographic trends, rather than short-term currency exchange rates. Indeed, an analysis by the Wall Street Journal shows that the falling yuan has had no effect on American jobs.
In addition, Trump blatantly ignores all the benefits of a falling yuan. Because it makes Chinese exports (and thus American imports) cheaper, that means American consumers get goods for lower prices… a pretty good bargain! You tell me, Trump… in what way is this a bad deal for American consumers? It seems that whenever Trump talks about international trade, he takes a simplistic “BLAME CHINA” stance on everything, because his supporters love hearing that shit (never mind that it doesn’t make economic sense). In fact, this clip from one of the GOP debates perfectly illustrates Trump’s “BLAME CHINA” mentality, and why it’s so stupid (watch until the end).
Basically, Trump gets asked about the TPP, blames China, and then gets called out by Rand Paul for being a fucking idiot. GOD I miss Rand Paul (I’ve always had a soft spot in my political heart for him and his father). But onto another important point. Trump mentions in the video that he wants to bring jobs back into America. This has been perhaps his most common promise on the campaign trail. Not a day goes by where Trump doesn’t promise to “take jobs back” from China and Mexico.
So how exactly does Trump plan to do that? The US-China trade reform plan that he has released on his website is very vague, and can basically be boiled down into three words — make China stop! Yeah, real specific. To be fair, his point about lowering the corporate tax rate is something that I fully agree with, but that really has nothing to do with US-China trade. Suffice to say that Trump has put forth no relevant plans on how he would deliver on his promises. Thus, we can only speculate about what Trump would do. Perhaps he’d slap China and Mexico with tariffs? Well, as explained before, that would only KILL jobs. Perhaps he’d hit up Xi Jinping (China’s leader) and say “look buddy… you better give us our jobs back, or else!”
I could keep on making fun of Trump all day, but the reality is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to take all our lost jobs back from China/Mexico. Now, here’s where Trump supporters will interject — Allen, you stupid liberal, Trump will take our jobs back by making great deals! Here’s my response — that is LITERALLY not how economics works AT ALL. The Chinese and the Mexicans are able to produce for much lower prices than us. Thus, the free market naturally shifts production to these developing countries. As a proof of concept, it’s incredibly important to note that China itself is now shedding manufacturing jobs to poorer countries in Southeast Asia.
Thus, Trump’s protectionist policies (such as tariffs) will NOT magically bring jobs back here. The ultimate proof of this is one word: automation. With wages rising in China, a growing number of companies are now actually coming back to the US. This is a wonderful trend (that Trump has conveniently failed to mention)! But the factories here are increasingly becoming automated, and thus require far fewer human workers than before. So yeah, #MadeInAmerica… by a robot. Automation has been a common trend alongside free trade globalization, and yet it isn’t talked about nearly as much. Trump would rather scapegoat China than have an intelligent discussion about the complex economic effects of automation.
This graph perfectly shows the automation that has happened in the country since the 1950s. Manufacturing employment peaked in 1979, at 19.5 million jobs. Today, it is barely above 12 million. Damn, we’ve lost over 7 million manufacturing jobs over the past few decades. The US manufacturing sector must be DYING like Trump says, right? Well, look at the output of our manufacturing sector. Even though we’ve shed all those jobs, we now produce TWICE as much as we did in 1979. And it’s all thanks to the robots, basically! Automated factories are more efficient and more productive than human labor, and this has allowed output to continue growing, even as we’ve lost millions of human jobs.
Let’s say we have a hypothetical working-class Trump supporter, Joe. Joe is 45 years old. He dropped out of high school and went right to work at the local shirt factory, which provided him with a decent-paying job that allowed him to support himself and his family! But 10 years ago, he lost his job to some Chinese sweatshop worker. Since then, Joe has bounced from one shitty job to the next. He hasn’t been able to find another good job, because of his lack of skills. Plus, he’s still got a family to support… basically, Joe is shit outta luck and extremely pissed at China. He believes whole-heartedly that Trump will get him his job back, because he’s desperate as hell.
Joe’s desperation has clouded his logic. He blames the “politicians” and the “establishment” for “selling him out” to China… even though he should really be blaming the invisible hand of the free market. Now, Joe, let’s assume a parallel universe in which free trade never happens and globalization is not a thing. Thus, your job is never shipped to China, and you’re still working in the shirt factory, right? NOPE! You see, Joe, your job would eventually have been taken by a robot anyway! And in this alternate 2016, Donald Trump is running on an equally ridiculous platform to ban technology and take our jobs back from the robots!
Hopefully this example illustrates the central problem with Trump’s ridiculous promises to get our jobs back. Namely, globalization works alongside automation to destroy manufacturing jobs. Let’s assume that Trump successfully ends globalization (never mind the fact that the economy would CRASH AND BURN)… automation would still be destroying manufacturing jobs regardless! And the only way to stop automation is to BAN TECHNOLOGY (which is impossible).
There is a central distinction to realize here. Not all manufacturing jobs are created equal. Back in the heyday of US manufacturing, many factories employed low-skilled labor, making things such as toys, clothes, furniture, etc. Those are the jobs that have been lost to free trade, and those are the same jobs that are easily automated. Now, with all the low-skilled factory jobs gone, the US manufacturing sector consists mostly of higher-skilled labor. Today, the majority of factory jobs require at least some post-secondary schooling. Gone are the days when people like Shirt Factory Joe could flunk out of high school and yet still get a job. Those days are NEVER coming back, and we would do well to focus on how to make the 21st-century post-industrial service-based economy work for people, rather than making outlandish and impossible promises about getting low-skilled factory jobs back.
I’m going to stop bashing Trump for a paragraph in order to make an appeal to his working class supporters. To all the people out there who have been harmed by free trade… I agree that the country has failed you. But your job is NOT coming back, and that’s the simple economic truth. With that being said, we shouldn’t just leave you all behind. This is why liberals advocate for the safety net, to help temporarily support those of you who have lost your jobs to China or Mexico. Liberals also want education reform, to ensure that quality education is available to all (that means education for both welders and philosophers). This way, the victims of free trade can arm themselves with the knowledge and the skills to go get a better job! In addition, we need to continue investing in advanced manufacturing (high tech products, cars, planes, medical devices, etc.) as well as clean, green industries (which could create LOTS of manufacturing jobs). These initiatives will ensure that the US manufacturing sector can continue to grow and compete on a global scale in the 21st century. Perhaps not so surprisingly, Trump is too busy blaming China to be talking about real solutions.
So, in conclusion, Donald Trump’s ideas on trade are either uninformed, disastrous, or both. He would threaten China with a 45% tariff, even though that would accomplish absolutely nothing, and would only HURT the economy. In addition, he constantly promises that he will bring all the jobs back from China and Mexico, even though that is ECONOMICALLY IMPOSSIBLE. This is because Trump only focuses on free trade globalization, while completely ignoring the effects of automation. The jobs that have been lost due to trade are predominantly low-skilled jobs, and these types of jobs are never coming back. Trump’s protectionism is horseshit, and makes ZERO economic sense. His trade policies are a goddamn pipe dream, and his working class supporters are so desperate that they’re willing to believe Trump’s ridiculous rhetoric. And that’s really the saddest part about Trump’s candidacy. He has intentionally misled his working class supporters into voting against their own interests. What a sick fucking joke.
On Immigration
Any Trump supporters who are still reading will probably say… Immigration? What the HELL does immigration have to do with economics? My answer is that immigration is inherently an economic issue. A country’s economy is ultimately underpinned by population dynamics. A full explanation of this would involve a discussion about birth rates, age dependency ratios, population pyramids, the demographic transition, etc… but we don’t have time for a full explanation, so I’ll summarize the basic facts about immigration.
Immigration keeps a country young, keeps birth rates up, and keeps the labor force growing. In the absence of immigration, once a country reaches developed status, it starts aging, and its population starts falling. To put it simply, first a country gets rich, and then it gets old. Of course, a shrinking labor force combined with large amounts of useless old people spells economic DISASTER for any country. Growth grinds to a halt, stagnation sets in, and eventually decline comes along. This sad fate has already befallen Japan, and is starting to happen to Europe. In fact, this is one of the MAJOR reasons why Europe has opened its borders to Muslims in recent years, in order to stave off economic decline (though the rapid influx of Muslims has created a whole host of problems for Europe, which I’ll probably be discussing in a later article).
Over here in America, we’re starting to see increasing amounts of old people as well… Baby Boomers, anyone? But we’re in no imminent danger of labor force shrinkage or sustained population decline. We have a lower median age and higher birth rates than other developed countries, and our population growth is still strong. We are demographically fine due to our large amounts of immigration. According to an analysis by the non-partisan Pew Research Center, immigrants and their descendants will account for 88% of US population growth over the next 50 years. Basically, immigration sustains our economic growth and makes us strong. Without immigration, we’d be facing Japan and Europe’s fate… fuck that shit!
Of course, this issue is near and dear to me because I am the proud son of immigrants. I only wrote this opening blurb on the benefits of immigration because one of my best friends happens to be a Trump supporter, and he thinks that we should completely close down America to ALL immigration. Yes, Adam, I’m talking about you (BOOM, NAME DROP)! Adam, your idea is fucking stupid for the reasons outlined above.
Now it’s time to talk about Trump’s immigration plans. Trump is not opposed to immigration as a whole, he’s just opposed to illegal immigration. And I absolutely agree with him, illegal immigration is a big problem that we need to address! But how would Trump specifically go about solving this problem? He has proposed deporting ALL illegals and building The Wall to keep them out, and he has promised he’ll make Mexico pay for The Wall. Sounds great, right? Except for the fact that the deportation plan is completely unworkable, prohibitively expensive, and economically disastrous. And anyone with an IQ over 50 knows that Mexico is NOT going to pay for The Wall.
Let’s go step-by-step and tear Trump’s stupid little fantasy apart, starting with the deportations. Trump says he would be able to round up all the illegals and kick them out in just two years. Really, buddy? You think you can deport 11–12 million illegals hiding in this country… in just two years? What the fuck are you smoking? Let’s ask the experts instead of mindlessly believing Trump’s crazy promises.
A comprehensive analysis by the right-wing American Action Forum (AAF) estimates that the deportations would actually take 20 years, costing US taxpayers $400–600 billion in total. Man, Trump’s budget deficits just keep on growing! Moreover, illegals provide the US economy with lots of cheap, low-skilled labor. All these illegals are (for better or worse) integrated into our economy. According to basic economic logic, throwing away all that cheap labor would seriously damage our productive capacity and send the nation into recession. AAF’s analysis estimates that deporting all the illegals would reduce US GDP by 5.7%. In dollar terms, that’s nearly $1.6 trillion of lost economic activity!
Trump supporters will probably say that once the illegals are gone, there’ll be more jobs for Americans, and unemployed Americans can fill all those open jobs. Okay… you mean like mowing people’s lawns, picking oranges, and being a maid? Honestly, I don’t even think someone as desperate as Shirt Factory Joe would want to work those jobs for a living. Basically, illegals have all the shittiest jobs, and Americans deserve good jobs, not shitty jobs. As I’ve said before, unemployed Americans would be much better off equipping themselves with the knowledge and the skills to get good jobs. I’m perfectly fine letting the illegals do all the shitty grunt work.
Another common argument that Trump supporters use to justify the mass deportations is that illegals are violent, nasty criminals. “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists… and some, I assume, are good people.” Well, Trump is wrong here, because most illegals are good people. The vast majority of illegals live and work peacefully in this country. Of course, illegals probably have higher crime rates than average, so I say if an illegal commits a serious crime, DEPORT THAT FUCKER. But it makes ZERO sense to deport ALL illegals based on the actions of a couple thugs!
The final argument for mass deportation is that illegals mooch off of American taxpayers. And this is absolutely true! Illegals mostly don’t pay taxes (aside from sales tax), and yet they can use our welfare. How the FUCK is this a fair system? This is why I’ve always been for a path to citizenship. Once these illegals are citizens, they can receive actual paychecks instead of getting paid under the table, and you know what happens to actual paychecks? THEY GET TAXED! Basically, we have 11–12 million illegals in our country right now who can use welfare without paying their fair share in taxes. Once they’re citizens, they’ll have to become useful members of society and start paying taxes!
If you don’t believe me, look at the numbers, which overwhelmingly support my assertion. A report from the non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) shows that comprehensive immigration reform (a path to citizenship) would increase state and local tax revenues by over $2 billion a year. What about federal tax revenues? Well, a report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that if the 2013 Senate immigration bill (which included a path to citizenship) had become law, it would have reduced the deficit, increasing federal tax revenues by $450 billion over the next decade.
Deporting all illegals is an incredibly idiotic idea. If we really want to stop illegals from leeching off taxpayers, we should give them a path to citizenship, so that these fuckers can become taxpayers. It’s really that simple. Comprehensive immigration reform would increase tax revenues across all levels of government, without any major changes in spending (because most illegals are already on welfare anyway).
Of course, if we offer illegals a path to citizenship, more illegals will just want to come, so we need to beef up border security. On this issue, I’ve always been for more border security, so I actually agree with The Wall! However, I know Mexico won’t pay for it… how do I know this? BECAUSE I HAVE A FUCKING BRAIN. Anyone who actually believes Mexico will pay for The Wall should probably put the bong down and get out more. I realize Donald Trump is very good at selling his fantasies, and it’s perfectly fine if you choose to live in that fairy tale world, but over here in the REAL WORLD, Mexico is absolutely NOT going to pay for The Wall. Let me repeat myself. Mexico will not cough up a single peso for The Wall. Ask former president Felipe Calderon, or former president Vicente Fox.
Still not convinced? Well, let me shred Trump’s own plan, then. On his website, Trump lays out the 3 ways that he would make Mexico pay. Unsurprisingly, all 3 policies are stupid as shit. He suggests that we could, 1) ban remittances that are wire-transferred into Mexico, 2) threaten tariffs, or 3) disrupt Mexican visas (either by increasing visa fees or cancelling them altogether).
Here’s the thing though. Banning wire-transferred remittances will just prompt illegals to either use Bitcoin, or hire smugglers to get their money across the border. On the second point, I’ve already discussed why tariffs are a stupid idea. Basically, a tariff is like shooting yourself in the foot. It would be completely useless and counterproductive, and I seriously fail to understand why this orange-skinned dipshit keeps on raving about tariffs. Finally, if we canceled Mexican visas or increased visa fees, Mexico would likely retaliate by doing the same to American visas. So much for that trip to Cancun you were planning… THANKS A LOT, TRUMP!
I will say it one last time. Mexico WILL NOT pay for The Wall, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES (aside from an invasion). So American taxpayers are gonna have to foot the bill. Even so, I’m all for The Wall. I’m all for increased border security. Of course, The Wall will probably never pass Congress, so we should at least improve and lengthen the partial fence that already exists. While we’re at it, more border guards would be nice, too. If it were me, I would probably bundle border security measures within a comprehensive immigration reform bill, much like the Senate’s 2013 bipartisan legislation.
Trump’s other major immigration policy is the infamous Muslim ban. That’s not really an economic issue, so I won’t discuss it in this article. However, the Muslim ban is so MONUMENTALLY stupid that I’ll definitely be analyzing it in a later article (which will probably contain twice as many expletives).
Trump’s immigration plans (like all his other economic plans) are complete garbage. He wants to deport all the illegals and make Mexico pay for The Wall. Of course, this plan ignores simple economic reality. Illegals provide the American economy with lots of cheap labor, and throwing away all that cheap labor would TRASH the economy. The deportations would also cost ridiculous amounts of taxpayer money. In addition, Mexico WILL NOT pay for The Wall, and there’s nothing Trump can do to compel them (besides going to war). Trump’s immigration plans are just more idiotic fantasies.
Immigration overall is good for the country, but on illegal immigration specifically, the issue gets more complicated. Trump is right that illegal immigration is a big problem, but that’s the ONLY thing he’s right about (because his “solutions” are batshit insane). We should implement sensible, bipartisan measures (like increased border security and a path to citizenship) in order to reduce the problems caused by illegal aliens. Of course, Trump’s proposals are neither sensible nor bipartisan.
On Wall Street, Big Banks, and Dodd-Frank
Okay, so we all know that Trump loves walls, right? Well, his ideas about financial regulation show that he also loves Wall Street! A little bit of background first… one of Trump’s major appeals up until now has been that he is self-funding his campaign, so he is NOT beholden to the “special interests, big donors, and corporate lobbyists.” Of course, that worked for him throughout the primaries. However, now that he has to prepare for the general election (which will likely cost him upwards of $1 billion), he has resorted to special interests, big donors, and corporate lobbyists. Another Trump flip-flop, what a shocker!
Now that Wall Street donors have piled onto his campaign, Trump has promised to repeal Dodd-Frank. For those who don’t know, Dodd-Frank is Obama’s signature Wall Street reform legislation. Passed in 2010, it contains the most extensive financial regulations since the Great Depression Era… and of course, Republicans have been slowly trying to rip it apart ever since. Last summer at the beginning of his campaign, Trump embraced anti-Wall Street rhetoric. And now, in yet another flip-flop, he has become disgustingly pro-Wall Street. A Dodd-Frank repeal would deregulate the big banks and let them roam free. Remember the last time we deregulated the big banks? They decided to play around recklessly with subprime mortgages… and ended up CAUSING THE FUCKING GREAT RECESSION. And now Trump wants to let them run amok again! So whenever Trump attacks Hillary for being “bought off by corporations”, I can’t help but laugh… because Trump’s policies are a thousand times more friendly to the rich and powerful than Hillary’s policies.
I cannot stress this enough. Donald Trump is the candidate of the top 1%. He does not understand the problems of regular Americans, and he does not care about regular Americans. He wants to slash taxes for the rich, and deregulate Wall Street. If you are a typical working-class Trump supporter, and you actually think that Trump cares about you, then you need to STOP LIVING UNDER A FUCKING ROCK, because Donald Trump doesn’t give a SHIT about you. Trump has never put in an honest day’s work in his life. If he becomes president, he’ll fight for the rich, NOT for the middle class. That’s the cold, hard truth.
Contrast Trump’s Wall Street policies with those of Hillary and Bernie. Hillary has promised to preserve, protect, and expand Dodd-Frank, and has released a comprehensive Wall Street regulation plan. Bernie takes the “tough on Wall Street” rhetoric a step further, promising to break up the big banks and re-institute Glass-Steagall regulations (which date back to the Depression Era). Of course, Bernie is tougher on Wall Street than Hillary, but the basic point still stands. Bernie and Hillary both want to regulate Wall Street. Donald Trump does not. The facts paint a very clear picture… Donald Trump wants to help the top 1%, while Bernie and Hillary want to help the rest of America.
Of course, I do admit that there are probably some stupid regulations contained within Dodd-Frank. It is by no means a perfect law. But let’s focus on fixing it and making it better, rather than just ripping it up and letting the big banks run free again! Wall Street deregulation DOES NOT WORK. Seriously, if you think that Trump’s plan to dismantle Dodd-Frank is in any way a good idea, then you know NOTHING.
Conclusion
I’m a moderate liberal, if you can’t tell. But my allegiance is ultimately to the facts. I evaluate every candidate as fairly as I can, and I try to take everything into account when voting. So I will absolutely admit, I agree with Trump on many things, actually. Taking care of our veterans… hell yeah! Getting our border situation under control… hell yeah! Tearing down political correctness… HELL FUCKING YEAH!
If Donald Trump decides to change his economic policies during the next few months (and have them NOT be complete shit), then I would re-evaluate him. But it appears that will not happen. Trump will not be changing his disastrous tax plan. He can’t really reverse his positions on trade, either. After all, the core of his support is working-class whites, who LOVE hearing protectionist bullshit. He has to stick with his proposals to scrap Dodd-Frank as well, because he’s got Wall Street donors to please now. The only exception is the deportations, which I expect he’ll eventually back down on.
In any case, make no mistake… Trump’s economic plans will NOT make America great again. Quite the opposite, they will in fact lead to American decline. And anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows this. So let’s all stop pretending that Donald Trump knows anything about economics, because he doesn’t. His economic plans are retarded as shit.
Of course, each voter assigns different levels of importance to different issues, based on what they care about most. For instance, if you care most about the veterans, or about tearing down political correctness, then you are making a reasonable choice by voting for Donald Trump. But as for me, the issue I care most about is the economy. And that is why I will NOT be voting for Donald Trump this November, because the American economy cannot afford to have a clueless idiot like him at the helm. Trump’s policies would send the national debt skyrocketing, and plunge the nation into an economic depression. So to any Trump supporters who are voting for him because of his economic policies… you might wanna stop using #MakeAmericaGreatAgain. A hashtag that better reflects reality is #MakeAmericaGreatDepressionAgain. If you’re a #ProudTrumpSupporter, that’s totally fine… but please, at least admit the truth — you don’t know anything about economics, and neither does your “Dear Leader” Donald Trump.
*mic drop*
