Report Card for Donald Trump

[Warren Dew]

(12-10-2016, 01:15 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-09-2016, 11:27 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(12-09-2016, 06:49 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(12-06-2016, 12:01 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: If you wanted to reduce the deficit in 1980, you should have voted for Anderson.  

I did.

Quote:The economic issues for the Reagan administration were inflation (A+, few expected inflation to end) and unemployment (B). 

Reagan ran on tax cuts.  It was his is signature issue.  That's why I could never support him.  I supported Anderson in the primary (I liked his 50 cent tax on gas) and voted for him in the general.

If you grade him on tax cuts, he gets an A too.

No he doesn't. He raised taxes many times after initially lowering them, and particularly on the middle class with his social security tax rate hikes. Since then, the money raised from this tax has been used less and less for its purpose.

Reagan's 1981 tax cut was an across the board cut of 23%, between 3 percentage points and 20 percentage points depending on your bracket.  The social security tax rate increase was less than 1 percentage point.  Only by being ignorant of basic arithmetic can one believe that Reagan increased tax rates overall.

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Quote:Nor have tariffs been promised.

He's talked about a 45% tariff on China and similar tariffs on Mexican imports.  Both of which I support.  I am sure he's not going to do it, but if I had voted for him these would be part of the reasons why.

He's talked about lots of things that were not promises.  Tariffs were one of them.

Many of the things he's talked about that seem off the wall are his initial bargaining position with respect to various negotiating partners.  He talks about withdrawing from NATO as an initial bargaining position to get NATO members to meet their defense spending obligation.  He talks about nukes in South Korea and Japan as a bargaining position against nukes in North Korea, perhaps because he thinks China has the leverage to get North Korea to give up their nuclear program.  He talks about trade war level tariffs against China and Mexico as an initial bargaining position with respect to trade negotiations with those two countries.

There is nothing to negotiate about except to raise tariffs again; that's it.

China could reduce tariffs on our products, and improve intellectual property law enforcement.

Mexico could impose worker and environmental protections similar to our own to help level costs.