Trump did not have the best words last night, believe me. Yuuugely unprepared. Here is an actual Trump answer:
“They are going to expand their companies and do a tremendous job. I’m getting rid of the great thing for the wealthy, it’s a great thing for the middle class and for companies to expand and when these people are going to put billions and billions of dollars into companies and when they are going to bring $2.5 trillion back from overseas where they can’t bring the money back because politicians like Secretary Clinton won’t allow them to bring the money back because the taxes are so onerous and the bureaucratic red tape, it’s so bad.”
He does this to engage you and keep you engaged trying to follow his train of thought, all the while hammering your amygdala with buzzwords. HillBot was well programmed, it refused to engage and respond and stuck to its core programming quite well. Free college of everyone, why not. Who TF knows what Trump is going to do anyway, besides make America great again and make sure we win etc etc.
For Trump it will take much more than debate practice…debate practice (at this level and for this position) only helps in sharpening focus (and preparing for questions/anticipated issues) when a body of knowledge and experience is held by the debator. You can’t get a Phd level of knowledge and insight in four weeks (especially when the debator would rather play on twitter than do his homework)
Does she botox? She looked great, Trump looked tired and beat. I assumed she had beauty technology help. Her hair looked great, as usual, really a tremendous job, it’s a great thing, really, it’s so great, these stylists, the things they do for hair, you wouldn’t even believe it…
I think he was talking about increasing import taxes to incentivize companies to stay in US. But either way, yes last night was a train wreck all around.
Whether or not you like her (I’m decidedly lukewarm, though am certainly not voting Trump). Hillary looked pretty darned good and presidential. She seemed like she could very well be the US version of Angela Merkel and Maggie Thatcher, even if the policy positions might differ.
GM - Trump’s stuff is a jumble of loosely related (unrelated?) points, but my understanding on the taxes thing was that he wanted to lower taxes on income (not sure what part of the income spectrum is targeted, but it seems likely that the higher brackets get better breaks), lower taxes on repatriated profits, possibly lower taxes on businesses working within the US, but raise tariffs on businesses that move abroad and then import products back into the US. So raising tax on some and lowering tax on others.
As much as I like to bash Trump on stuff, it’s not that inconsistent and I think it’s probably one of the more defensible policies he has put forward. Though if he wants to have an aggressive foreign policy, I’m not sure how cutting taxes everywhere (other than tariffs, which tend ot make lots of stuff more expensive) is going to pay for that, particularly if he wants more boots on the ground.
I thought his plan was about raising taxes on the highest earners, but keeping business taxes lower. That would be something I would support, and I think that would help alleviate income inequality while at the same time incentivizing businesses to invest.
It’s longer than my post, but here are some key points as of this post.
Brackets & Rates for Married-Joint filers (Brackets for single filers are ½ of these amounts) Taxable income: Rate Less than $75,000: 12% More than $75,000 but less than $225,000 25% More than $225,000: 33% The Trump plan will retain the existing capital gains rate structure (maximum rate of 20 percent) with tax brackets shown above. Carried interest will be taxed as ordinary income.
Excerpts of Business Taxes
The Trump plan will lower the business tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, and eliminate the corporate alternative minimum tax.
It will provide a deemed repatriation of corporate profits held offshore at a one-time tax rate of 10 percent. The 3.8 percent Obamacare tax on investment income will be repealed, as will the alternative minimum tax.
Trump had the upper hand in the first half hour. He is effective when he paints Hillary as the status quo candidate, as the establishment candidate. He also reaches a good portion of the swing state electorate when he talks about renegotiating and tearing up trade deals (although I completely disagree with him).
After that, his lack of preparation was evident. There were 4 issues that were going to come up with 100% certainty: birther movement, Iraq, his non disclosure of tax returns and his views on women. He needed canned responses for these but instead he fell into the trap everytime without exception. His reply on Iraq was mindboggling. He was a simple businessman at the time so not expected to know the full story, Hillary was actually in the Senate and voted for it after studying the issue for hundreds of hours. It was an opportunity to attack but instead he tried to meagerly defend himself and used his 2 minutes to bring up his buddy Sean Hannity (must of mentioned his name 6 times during that segment). Also, when Trump says his temperament is his best quality, he loses credibility no matter what you think of the guy.
The irony in yesterday’s debate is that Hillary got better throughout the night and Trump got worse. Ironic if we take the stamina comment into context.
I’m fairly certain if Trump satisfied me last night, he would have lost ground. I’m not his target audience and he knows it. Neither are most people on this board. Didn’t anyone jump ship? He’s defied the “experts” so far, yet the experts still think they know what he needs to do. The effect on the swing voters is all that matters. Who wins or loses the debate in an academic sense is irrelevant. Didn’t seem that he even made an attempt. While it’s hard to believe, I can only assume his buffoonery is calculated. Almost everyone that has had his ear through the years, for or against, warns not to underestimate Trump. Maybe that is his hope…
I agree I think it was a calculated move to hold back a little. He didn’t hit her on her biggest character indictments because he wants them to have maximum impact. he knows the electorate is a bunch of morons with a short attention span so he’s saving it. “It ain’t how you start, it’s how you finish”.
Isn’t part of the problem in 'Merika that the legal entity known as the corporation has all the money/assets, and thus controls everything (including the government). Doesn’t a plan like this just give them an even bigger piece of the pie? It’s got to come from someone (a human), or debt (and the USG is already bankrupt).
So while this “plan” seems better than the previous nonsense he put to paper while drunk, I’m still highly skeptical. Trickle down was tried, it didn’t work, unless the current income inequality is considered “working”.
