2016 Dec 2^nd

Trump had a “Victory Rally” last night. I watched it long enough to realize that it was largely a self-promotional “Am I not great or what?” effort. He was pushing no agenda but himself. (Can a person be an agenda? For Donald Trump it can.) He has become so addicted to cheering crowds that wait for hours to see him and just perhaps touch him, that he must continue his campaign  rallies rather than tend to the tasks required of the President–elect. For example, in spite of not wishing to be bothered by the same daily intelligence summary for which the president finds time, Trump finds time to take “victory  tours” to thank his supporters.  America first this is not; try Donald J. Trump first.

Much of his rally consisted of congratulating himself (And Governor Pence who was largely responsible for its success.) on persuading the Carrier division of UTECH for not moving to Mexico all of the jobs they had initially planned to take there. The incentive for Carrier was a promise of a 700 thousand dollar a year state tax deduction for the next ten years.

This is curious because Trump has claimed that this very trick of promising tax goodies to corporations to keep jobs here does not work and that he will not do it…then, of course he did exactly that! What a surprise!

His recipe for keeping jobs here is to slap a 35 percent tariff on all imports from companies that have moved American jobs out of the country. Trump should take some time to familiarize himself with the power of the presidency, that power nowhere authorizes the president to set tariffs. His job is to see that the tariffs set by congress are collected; he has no power to set them himself. Once in office he will find out that congress, although happy to have a quasi- Republican as president, is not likely to abdicate any of their constitutional responsibilities to him. They are very picky about that.

Trump has another problem with this arrangement as Senator Sanders has pointed out. There is nothing really new here, companies have used this trick for years, and that is, “Give us this tax break or we will relocate our operations elsewhere.” After Trump’s glorious announcement I’m sure many more companies will try this con.

One element is never mentioned: When a state or the federal government offer a tax concession, what services will have to be cut to compensate for that loss of revenue. The argument that new growth will compensate for the tax loss is not credible. The company is agreeing only to stay where it is; it is not agreeing to increase wages or to increase hiring.