2016 Jan 23^rd

Under the Trump presidency, we will have to get used to an alternative universe: First we had Trump’s pal, Steve Bannon of alt-right fame, helping Trump understand the wisdom of the white supremacist movement. (Notice that this is called the alt-right movement, not the white supremacy movement. Has Trump succumbed to political correctness?) Then Kellyanne Conway asserts that there are alternative facts. These were the facts that Sean Spicer angrily pushed when he claimed that Trump’s “inaugural crowds were the largest in history. Period.”  According to Kellyanne, these Spicer claims were just alternative facts. If Kellyanne had just explained that these were alt-facts, her interview with Chuck Todd would have been much less tragic.

The alt-fact theory now explains what Kellyanne meant when she claimed we should evaluate Trump by what is in his heart not by what comes out of his mouth. Apparently, these are two not necessarily parallel channels of communication used by The Donald and we are focusing on the wrong one. How are we to know which one is operative at any given time? No one is saying.

Donald Trump’s description of his tax policy may be another example of an alt-fact.  Here is a quote from his website:

“Reduce taxes across-the-board, especially for working and middle-income Americans who will receive a massive tax reduction.” This “massive tax reduction” for the middle class is described below:

“Looking at median household income of roughly $56,000, such a tax change would equate to roughly $1,600 in annual savings per household,” according to the William Blair note.

The wealthiest 20% of Americans, however, would save more than $16,000, or 10 times as much in after-tax income, and the top 1% would see an average tax cut of over $214,000.

Meanwhile, taxes for the poorest fifth of households would drop by an average of $110, just 0.8% percent of their income.

A very large tax cut that delivers an enormous share of the benefits to the richest Americans — with an average cut of over a million dollars to the richest 0.1 percent — will be one of the top priorities of both Trump and the incoming Congress. This should raise a clear red flag about just how much Trump really cares about the bottom 90 percent.” It is estimated that this tax cut will reduce federal revenue by about 9.5 trillion dollars over ten years.

(Make no mistake, Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, has an even more generous tax cut plan for rich folks. Ryan’s wants to reduce the size of government and if that requires congress to strangle it for funds, so-be-it.)

Trump himself and his children will be major beneficiaries of his tax plan. Instead of paying 39.5 percent as a marginal tax rate, he will pay 25 percent. Of course his refusal to release his tax returns leads us to wonder if he pays any taxes at all. There must be some reason he so adamantly refuses to release his returns. He claims nobody but the media cares but that’s another alt-fact because polls show that over 70 percent of the public want to see those returns.

Finally, his children will benefit enormously from his plan to eliminate the estate tax and the gift tax. Hey, he spent a lot of his own money to get to be president. Why shouldn’t he expect to make a profit? Isn’t he a businessman?