Post election ponderings - Part III

President-elect Donald Trump did an interview with the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes. During that interview he said "stop it" when it comes to the racist attacks going on since his election.  Then he turns around and names a known white supremacist/anti-Semite to be one of his top advisors.

Yeah, I'm shaking my head at that one too.  Racism has no place in the Oval Office.  Unless of course you're a president who condones it.  What say you, Mr. Trump?

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He said that gay marriage is a done deal because the Supreme Court has ruled on it.  He also said that he plans to appoint Supreme Court justices who will seek to overturn Roe v Wade.  The dichotomy is obvious.  Why is it that the one issue is a done deal because of a Supreme Court decision, while another Supreme Court decision needs to be overturned?

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It's a good thing that Mr. Trump can't just unilaterally impose his tax proposals on the American people.  Let's look at one specific aspect of his proposed plan.  That involving the elimination of the personal and dependent exemptions.

His proposal is to increase the standard deduction.  But as pointed out in an article published by Forbes (one of the best sources for information on income tax issues) this increase will be more than offset by the elimination of those exemptions for most families.

Currently a single parent with one dependent gets to exempt the first $17,600 of their income from 2016 income tax.  That's the current standard deduction amount for head of household of $9,400 plus two exemptions at $4,100 each.  Trump's plan replaces that with one standard deduction of $15,000 (as stated on his website as opposed to the $15,150 in the Forbes piece), making $2,600 more of this household's income subject to tax.

But if this parent has two kids, they will be taxed on another $4,100 in income that would be exempted under current law.  Imagine what Kate Gosselin would face except that she probably itemizes her deductions.  But even then, under the Trump plan she will pay more due to the loss of those exemptions.

The size of a family needs to be factored in to the calculation of just how much of that family's income is subject to taxation.  Eliminating the exemptions removes that portion of the process and is a major mistake.

Trump's tax plan, especially the proposal to allow those with "pass-through" income to elect to be taxed at a flat rate of 15% would benefit the wealthy (himself included, considering how much of his income probably comes from pass-through sources) more than any other group.

One last thought on the Trump tax plan.  An analysis by the Tax Policy Center shows that tax revenues would shrink by more than $6 trillion during the first decade after the passage of Trump's tax plan.  For those who will cry out that the Tax Policy Center has a liberal bias, let's look at the analysis of the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit with a known conservative bias.  Their report shows an estimated reduction in federal tax revenues during the first decade under the Trump tax plan would be over $10 trillion.

Hopefully Trump's tax plan will be dead on arrival in Congress, to be replaced by more sensible proposals.

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In that interview with Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes, Donald Trump was asked if he would accept his presidential salary.  His response was, "Well, I’ve never commented on this, but the answer is no.  think I have to by law take $1, so I’ll take $1 a year. But it’s a—I don’t even know what it is. Do you know what the salary is?"

Actually the first part of his statement was a lie.  He has commented on this, and it was in September of this year.  He said the following at a rally in New Hampshire.  "The first thing I'm going to do is tell you that if I'm elected president, I'm accepting no salary, OK?" Trump said. "That's no big deal for me."

What does it say about someone who uses so much bluster and hyperbole that they cannot remember what they themselves said just two months earlier?  Nothing flattering to be sure.

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Trump also said that his initial round-up and deportation of people here in this country illegally will be limited to those who are "criminals."  If we ignore the criminal act of entering the country in violation of the law, there are less than 900,000 in that pool of illegal immigrants, not the 3 million he described on television.

What he hasn't explained is just how he's going to do this, given the incredible gridlock going on within the immigration courts at present.

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The L.A Times is reporting that "hundreds" of students walked out of school to protest the election of Donald Trump.  That's their right.

But is it smart?  If there were 1,000 such students marked absent today and LAUSD gets $60 per day in average daily attendance revenue from the state, those protesters just cost the district $60,000.

That part of the equation wasn't explained by the administration in their attempts to convince the students to stay in school today.

In a year where the district's annual budget is more than $6 billion, $60,000 is a tiny drop in a great big bucket.  The next time the teachers of these students cannot do something the students want done because of lack of funds, maybe they should consider that tiny drop in that gigantic bucket.  It is missing because of their choice to be truant.