Donald Trump’s Actions Take Money out of Your Pockets

Donald Trump promises to fight for forgotten Americans who, by all rights, have legitimate grievances about how they have fared under an increasingly monopolistic economy that affords fewer chances to get ahead.

But Donald Trump is a liar. He lies effortlessly, from frivolous claims like a crowd going wild for him at a debate that had no audience to serious betrayals like telling workers in Ohio that he can save their jobs while letting factories close. One worker said that when unions face off against the Trump administration “it seems everything they do is something that favors business.”

Unfortunately, a lot of people know Trump is a liar and even a bad guy, but they think he lies and screws over the right people — giving a big middle thumb to the elites (or immigrants or scapegoats of choice) that they themselves hate. Donald Trump has maintained the veneer of fighting for the little guy when his entire history and record as president say otherwise.

DONALD TRUMP SCREWS WORKERS

Donald Trump has a long history of bilking small businesses and contractors out of money. He famously doesn’t pay people who perform work for him, forcing some companies into bankruptcy. He has been involved in as many as 4000 lawsuits in attempts to avoid paying his bills, many of which he fought against the very Americans he claims to want to protect.

He bragged about union-busting with one of the country’s wealthiest men, who ironically could only become a naturalized US citizen because his maternal grandfather was an American citizen.

He bragged at a Pennsylvania rally that he hated paying overtime. And, of course, he doesn’t pay overtime. Much of his wealth is the result of dodging taxes and screwing workers.

TRUMP’S ONLY BIG ACCOMPLISHMENT WAS CUTTING TAXES FOR THE RICH AND CORPORATIONS

So, it is unsurprising that the only major piece of legislation he managed to get passed as president was a costly tax cut that almost exclusively benefitted the richest Americans and corporations. Trump promised huge benefits that never materialized. According to analysts, “earnings do not change for workers in the bottom 90% of the within-firm distribution, but do increase for workers in the top 10%, and increase particularly sharply for firm managers and executives.” In other words, inequality increased.

A 2019 report examining the result of Trump’s first tax cut found that “a cut to the corporate income tax rate would increase post-tax monopoly profits.” And that is just what Trump promises to do in a second term — further cut corporate taxes and increase corporate monopolistic wealth.

These gifts to the wealthy and corporations took money out of the federal government’s coffers that could otherwise have been used to fund policies that benefitted working- and middle-class Americans.

He brings his disdain for everyone who is not rich—or him—to the presidency. His grievance politics aim to enrich only one person: himself.

DONALD TRUMP HURTS CONSUMERS

Donald Trump is trying to buy votes at every campaign rally by promising free giveaways, from tax cuts to IVF treatments, and promising to pay for everything with magical tariffs.

That isn’t how tariffs work. Companies, not governments, pay tariffs, and they pass the expense on to you. When Donald Trump enacted tariffs in his previous administration, they forced American companies to cut wages and jobs for U.S. workers, to defer potential wage hikes and to raise prices for consumers.

Donald Trump has proposed tariffs ranging from 10 percent to 200 percent, which would increase consumer costs by thousands of dollars a year. Tariffs on food, in particular, would reduce the food supply and drive up costs across the board. They are, as Kamala Harris claims, the equivalent of a giant, regressive sales tax on all Americans.

Donald Trump is driven by vengeance and a desire to be liked. This produces an instability that is toxic to the Americans he claims to defend. He will do whatever is necessary to satisfy the wealthy donors and corporations who have his ear, and that hurts all Americans.