The Trump Tax Plan

Looking at the tax plan unveiled by Donald Trump, one finds many answers but even more questions.  Here are a few of the big issues:

1.  What happens with international taxation of American companies?  Most people would find it odd to start with this issue, but it is one of the biggest.  Today, if an American company does business in Germany and makes ten million dollars in profits there, it pays no tax until it brings that profit back to the USA.  That would mean at 35% tax on ten million dollars, so the company leaves the money in Germany to avoid the tax.  At the moment, American companies have something more than two trillion dollars abroad for just this reason.  Trump's plan changes that.  He wants to tax foreign profits at 10%, and he wants to start with a ten percent tax on that two plus trillion dollars in year one.

Trump's proposed change is coupled with another move:  he will cut the regular corporate tax rate to 15%.  The cut in the corporate tax rate will move America from being the highest tax location in the developed world to one that will be highly competitive with other countries.  The hope is to boost growth here by attracting investment.

But here's the problem.  Why would a company locate in the USA if it would suddenly have to pay 10% of its profits in other countries to the American government?  Wouldn't it make more sense to put the headquarters elsewhere?  In that way, the company could still only pay 15% on its American activities, but it would not need to pay additional American taxes on activities around the world.  A rational CEO would try to move his company out of the USA in order to escape that extra tax burden.  Trump's move would push companies out of the USA, not bring them in here.

There are ways that this result could be avoided, but Trump hasn't chosen to employ any of them.

2.  What happens to deductions like medical expenses?  Trump tells us that home mortgage interest and charity will still be deductible like now.  Other deductions are in limbo.  But how about someone who is extremely ill and who needs constant nursing.  Today, that expense is deductible, and it often erases the income tax liability of the patient and his or her family.  Someone who is paying something like a hundred thousand dollars per year for nurses/aides is already using up all or almost all of their savings.  Should we still be taxing them for the income that they get?  Trump seems to be saying yes.

3.  Why should the death tax be repealed?  The federal estate tax is already set to a level where it kicks in only above ten million for a married couple, and it is indexed to inflation so it will rise over time.  This is not an issue of family farms or small businesses; rather, it is a gift to the super rich who will be able to pass wealth to their heirs without the passing generations diluting that fortune.  Do we really want a group of hereditary financial aristocrats?  I don't think so.

There's more, but these are just three of the most salient points.

 

Classified...No, TOP SECRET

Today's news on the Hillary email front puts an end to the supposed "dispute" over whether her email contained classified information.  When the email story first broke Hillary told the nation that she neither sent nor received classified information on her private unsecured system.  Then some small number of emails were made public.  The inspector general's office took a sample of 40 emails and reviewed them to see if there was any classified info.  It found that ten percent were classified.  Then the IG said that two of the four classified ones were TOP SECRET, the ultimate designation of importance in the classified info area.  Hillary backtracked at that point.  She changed her story from no classified information on the system to no documents marked classified.  Then, as more and more emails were reviewed, many classified documents were discovered.  At last count, the number of emails with classified information was over 500 and that was only from reviewing less than half of the ones Hillary turned over.  Hillary changed her story again.  She went to not knowingly sending classified information.  She also challenged the designation of the email as classified; she said that the issue was just a dispute among agencies since the State Department had not called the documents classified.

Today we learned that the State Department has informed a Congressional committee that not only were the emails classified but some were TOP SECRET as well.  Indeed, State said that it had to get all copies of the emails from Hillary's lawyer because he did not have a proper secure place to keep these TOP SECRET documents.

Most likely, Hillary will soon be telling us that she never actually saw any of the emails that she sent or received.  In fact, she will soon say that someone else was actually handling her emails.  The only question is which of her aides is the one Hillary is about to try to get sent to prison to protect Queen Hillary.

 

The Story of Carly Fiorina and the Planned Parenthood Videos

It's amazing how focused the media has become on whether or not Carly Fiorina is correctly describing what is shown in the Planned Parenthood videos.  Is the fetus shown in the video one that came from an abortion at Planned Parenthood or is it stock footage that was inserted into the video?  That's the big issue according to media giants like Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd.  He spent about a third of his interview with Fiorina on this "issue" on Sunday.

Think about that.  Planned Parenthood "harvests" body parts from aborted babies.  There is no denial of that fact, nor could there be since there is ample video of many Planned Parenthood officials discussing the practice.  These same officials also discuss how often babies are born alive after an abortion and have to be either left to die or killed.  Again, this is undeniable.  For Chuck Todd, however, the story is not Planned Parenthood's conduct of killing babies born alive, but rather whether the video was correctly described by Fiorina.  Is this for real?

Sadly, the answer to the question is clearly yes.  The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Act is pending in the House at the moment.  This bill would require doctors to give aid to babies born alive after an abortion.  These are live children after all.  The bill does nothing more than this, but it is opposed by nearly every Democrat in the House and president Obama has promised to veto the measure should it be enacted by both the House and Senate.  Isn't that more newsworthy than whether or not the footage in the videos is stock footage or actual footage taken at Planned Parenthood?  For the left, the answer is a clear NO.

 

Kunduz or Kan'tduz

The Taliban have overrun the city of Kunduz in Afghanistan.  It is the first major Afghan city lost to the Taliban in a great many years.  It happened, of course, nine months after the end of the NATO (American) combat operations in the country.  Hopefully, the forces of the Afghan government will oust the Taliban from the city and re-establish control.  Maybe this attack can be used to capture or kill all those Taliban fighters who are not in the city.  More likely, Kunduz will be left in Taliban control for some time, and the loss of the city will be a major blow to the position of the government.

At least in Afghanistan there is a force of about 10,000 Americans who can be used in support of the government troops, if needed, to retake the city.

Either way, this is a major embarrassment for the Obama administration and the USA.

 

Now Obama is arming al Qaeda

Apparently, it was not enough to sign a deal to guarantee Iran a nuclear weapon.  Now we learn that roughly a quarter of the American arms going to Syria go to the local branch of al Qaeda called the al Nusra Front.  The arms are delivered to the few Syrians who were supposedly vetted by the Obamacrats and they trans-ship the arms to al Nusra. 

Fourteen years after 9-11, at a time when the War on Terror is supposedly still underway, the Obama is actually letting American arms go to the people who perpetrated the 9-11 attacks.  It is hard to imagine a more heinous act by our president.

 

Rubio Was Correct

At the GOP debate a few weeks ago, senator Marco Rubio said that the next move by the Russians would be to form a regional group in the Middle East to "fight ISIS".  Russia, of course, would be at the head of it all.  Rubio was correct.  According to the New York Times, the Obama administration was shocked at the announcement that Russia had agreed with Iraq as well as Iran and Syria to coordinate and share intelligence to confront ISIS.  That's right, our "ally" Iraq is now working with Russia, Iran, and the Assad regime in Syria to deal with ISIS, and the deal was made without even telling the USA about it.  Nothing could better illustrate the disdain of the Iraqis for the Obama administration than this.

Today, president Obama is meeting with Vladimir Putin in New York.  No doubt, the USA will somehow join the Russian led coalition to deal with ISIS.  But that's just it.  It will be led by Putin, and you can be sure that the group will work to promote Russian interests.  ISIS is more an excuse for the group than the real reason for its formation.  Forty years ago, the Russians were forced out of the Middle East when Egypt ordered Soviet troops out of the country.  Since then, the Russians have been kept out of the region.  Now, Obama's incompetence is letting them back in.  This will not be good for US interests in the region or for the world.

Someone ought to ask the president why senator Rubio predicts this on national TV, but when it happens the administration is still "shocked".

 

It's Good Ruth Is Here To Explain It

In the Washington Post this morning, liberal columnist Ruth Marcus has an article explaining what the pope meant in his various speeches during his trip here.  According to Ruth, the pope was implicitly criticizing Republicans.  Sure, the pope never mentioned either Democrats or Republicans, but Ruth understood that he was actually criticizing the GOP.  The pope mentioned the sanctity of life which could be seen as criticism of the pro-abortion Democrats, but Ruth could tell that he actually meant to be criticizing Republicans.  When the pope talked about helping the needy, something that both parties want but something that they achieve by different means, Ruth "knew" that Pope Francis was actually criticizing the Republicans.  In other words, Ruth heard what she wanted to hear rather than what the pope actually said. 

Wouldn't it be nice if the liberals would listen to others for once rather than to tell them what they actually mean?  Maybe Ruth could learn something?  Okay, that may be too much to hope for.