12 Reasons to vote against Trump
Bob Sheak, Oct 11, 2024
Introduction
This post offers twelve reasons to vote against Trump/Vance in the November presidential election. The reader may think of more reasons. It will take a large vote for Harris/Walz to accomplish this goal and thus end Trump’s dominating influence on the Republican Party and US politics. It is a truly epical fight about democracy vs fascism.
#1 – Cognitive decline
Peter Baker and Dylan Freedman report on Trump’s increasingly angry and rambling speeches (https://nytimes.com/2024/10/06/us/politics/trump-speeches-age-cognitive-decline.html). Peter Baker covered the Trump presidency and wrote a book on it with his wife, Susan Glasser. Dylan Freedman is a machine-learning engineer and a journalist working on A.I. initiatives. Here’s some of what Baker and Freedman consider.
“Former President Donald J. Trump vividly recounted how the audience at his climactic debate with Vice President Kamala Harris was on his side. Except that there was no audience. The debate was held in an empty hall. No one “went crazy,” as Mr. Trump put it, because no one was there.”
“He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical. He voices outlandish claims that seem to be made up out of whole cloth. He digresses into bizarre tangents about golf, about sharks, about his own “beautiful” body. He relishes “a great day in Louisiana” after spending the day in Georgia. He expresses fear that North Korea is “trying to kill me” when he presumably means Iran. As late as last month, Mr. Trump was still speaking as if he were running against President Biden, five weeks after his withdrawal from the race.”
Baker and Freedman continue. “With Mr. Biden out, Mr. Trump, at 78, is now the oldest major party nominee for president in history and would be the oldest president ever if he wins and finishes another term at 82. A review of Mr. Trump’s rallies, interviews, statements and social media posts finds signs of change since he first took the political stage in 2015. They point out that Trump “has always been discursive and has often been untethered to truth, but with the passage of time his speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past.
“According to a computer analysis by The New York Times, Mr. Trump’s rally speeches now last an average of 82 minutes, compared with 45 minutes in 2016. Proportionately, he uses 13 percent more all-or-nothing terms like “always” and “never” than he did eight years ago, which some experts consider a sign of advancing age.
“Similarly, he uses 32 percent more negative words than positive words now, compared with 21 percent in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change. And he uses swearwords 69 percent more often than he did when he first ran, a trend that could reflect what experts call disinhibition. (A study by Stat, a health care news outlet, produced similar findings.)
“He cites fictional characters… like Hannibal Lecter from “Silence of the Lip” (he meant “Silence of the Lambs”), asks “where’s Johnny Carson, bring back Johnny” (who died in 2005) and ruminates on how attractive Cary Grant was (“the most handsome man”). He asks supporters whether they remember the landing in New York of Charles Lindbergh, who actually landed in Paris and long before Mr. Trump was born.”
“Sarah Matthews, who was Mr. Trump’s deputy press secretary until breaking with him over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, said the former president had lost his fastball.
“‘I don’t think anyone would ever say that Trump is the most polished speaker, but his more recent speeches do seem to be more incoherent, and he’s rambling even more so and he’s had some pretty noticeable moments of confusion,’ she said.”
Some of Mr. Trump’s cabinet secretaries had a running debate over whether the president was “crazy-crazy,” as one of them put it in an interview after leaving office, or merely someone who promoted “crazy ideas.” There were multiple conversations about whether the 25th Amendment disability clause should be invoked to remove him from office, although the idea never went far. His own estranged niece, Mary L. Trump, a clinical psychologist, wrote a book identifying disorders she believed he has. Mr. Trump bristled at such talk, insisting that he was ‘a very stable genius’.
“Ms. Matthews said of her time in the White House. ‘No one wanted to outright say it in that environment — is he mentally fit? — but I definitely had my moments where I personally questioned it.’
“A 2022 study by a pair of University of Montana scholars found that Mr. Trump’s speech complexity was significantly lower than that of the average president over American history. (So was Mr. Biden’s.) The Times analysis found that Mr. Trump speaks at a fourth-grade level, lower than rivals like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who speaks at an eighth-grade level, which is roughly average for modern presidents.”
There is more. Baker and Freedman write:
“Mr. Trump has appeared tired at times and has maintained a far less active campaign schedule this time around, holding only 61 rallies so far in 2024, compared with 283 through all of 2016, according to the Times analysis, although he has picked up the pace lately. He appeared to nod off during his hush-money trial in New York before being convicted of 34 felonies.”
“Now his rallies are powered as much by anger as anything else. His distortions and false claims have reached new levels. His adversaries are ‘lunatics’ and ‘deranged’ and ‘communists’ and ‘fascists.’ Never particularly restrained, he now lobs four-letter words and other profanities far more freely.”
“But like some people approaching the end of their eighth decade, he is not open to correction. “Trump is never wrong,” he said recently in Wisconsin. ‘I am never, ever wrong.’” And his millions of followers believe him.
#2 – Moral unfitness
The New York Times Editorial Board has offered a summary of Trump’s moral unfitness to be president
(https://nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/11/opinion/editorials/donald-trump-2024-unfit.html).
“He lies blatantly and maliciously, embraces racists, abuses women and has a schoolyard bully’s instinct to target society’s most vulnerable. He has delighted in coarsening and polarizing the town square with ever more divisive and incendiary language. Mr. Trump is a man who craves validation and vindication, so much that he would prefer a hostile leader’s lies to his own intelligence agencies’ truths and would shake down a vulnerable ally for short-term political advantage. His handling of everything from routine affairs to major crises was undermined by his blundering combination of impulsiveness, insecurity and unstudied certainty.
This record shows what can happen to a country led by such a person: America’s image, credibility and cohesion were relentlessly undermined by Mr. Trump during his term.
“None of his wrongful actions are so obviously discrediting as his determined and systematic attempts to undermine the integrity of elections — the most basic element of any democracy — an effort that culminated in an insurrection at the Capitol to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power.
#3 – Law breaker
In a report for Citizens for Ethics (CREW), Brie Sparkman and Sara Wiatrak write that, as of March 2024 [updated June 4], “Donald Trump has been personally charged with 88 [now 91] criminal offenses in four criminal cases” (https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/trumps-91-criminal-charges-and-where-they-stand). They continue:
“This total reflects charges related to Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, election interference in Georgia, falsifying business records in New York, and mishandling classified records after leaving the presidency. Donald Trump is the first former president in U.S. history to be criminally indicted.”
#4 – Opposed to abortion access
On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, ending the right to abortion that had existed since 1973. Nina Totenberg and Sarah McCammon review the new law for NPR (https://npr.org/2022/06/24/1102305878/supreme-court-abortion-roe-v-wade-decision-overturn). Here are excerpts and comments from their analysis.
“The decision, most of which was leaked in early May [2022], means that abortion rights will be rolled back in nearly half of the states immediately, with more restrictions likely to follow. For all practical purposes, abortion will not be available in large swaths of the country. The decision may well mean too that the court itself, as well as the abortion question, will become a focal point in the upcoming fall elections and in the fall and thereafter.”
Concurring with Justice Samuel Alito 78-page decision were Justice Clarence Thomas, appointed by the first President Bush, and the three Trump appointees — Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed by President George W. Bush, concurred in the judgment only, and would have limited the decision to upholding the Mississippi law at issue in the case, which banned abortions after 15 weeks.”
“Dissenting were Justices Stephen Breyer, appointed by President Clinton, and Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, appointed by President Obama. They agreed that the court decision means that ‘young women today will come of age with fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers.’ Indeed, they said the court’s opinion means that ‘from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of. A state can force her to bring a pregnancy to term even at the steepest personal and familial costs.’”
#5 – Building a right-wing and lawless army of militia to advance Trump’s authoritarian agenda
Bob Dreyfuss delves into this issue in an article for The Nation on Sept 5, 2024
(https://thenation.com/article/society/donald-trump-squadristi-nazies). Dreyfuss, a Nation contributing editor, is an independent investigative journalist who specializes in politics and national security.
Dreyfuss writes: “Trump, of course, has a long history of supporting and encouraging potentially violent supporters. In 2016, during his first campaign, he suggested that ‘the Second Amendment people’—i.e., his gun-owning backers—might be able to stop the nomination of Democratic Supreme Court choices. In 2019, he said, ‘I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump—I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough—until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.’ And in 2020 Trump famously told the Proud Boys militia to ‘stand down and stand by.’ Ultimately, the Proud Boys would help lead the January 6 insurrection.”
There is a pattern. Dreyfuss reports, “Certainly, Trump has summoned US militias and other extremists to his cause. In 2020, for instance, at the height of nationwide protests against lockdowns, mask requirements, and school closures at the start of the coronavirus crisis, Trump issued a series of viral tweets urging his followers to ‘liberate’ Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia, where armed adherents were mobilizing in street demonstrations. For instance, on April 17, 2020, Trump tweeted—characteristically, in all caps—’LIBERATE MICHIGAN!’ Soon afterwards, gun-toting Trump supporters invaded the state capitol in Lansing. Most egregiously, he called on supporters to gather in Washington on January 5-6, 2021—’Be there, will be wild’—for a rally that ended in the occupation of the Capitol and led to Trump’s impeachment.”
Trump has an armed and cult-like following that seems prepared to take up arms on his behalf. This is in a context in which the nation is bitterly divided “in which a substantial portion of the populace believes that violence may be necessary.
“According to a survey by the University of Chicago’s Project on Security & Threats, as many as 14 percent of Americans say that violence is justified to ‘achieve political goals that I support,’ and 4.4 percent—that’s more than 11 million US adults—agree that ‘the use of force is justified to return Donald Trump to the presidency.’”
#6 -Trump’s January 6 Culpability
Brett Wilkins reports on a new case for Trump’s culpability on January 6
“Jack Smith, the special counsel probing former U.S. President Donald Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 presidential contest, on Wednesday [Oct 2] presented a massive trove of fresh evidence supporting his election interference case against the 2024 Republican nominee.
“Smith’s sprawling and highly anticipated 165-page motion — which was partly unsealed Wednesday by presiding U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan — states that Trump ‘asserts that he is immune from prosecution for his criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election because, he claims, it entailed official conduct. Not so.’
“Trump — who in August 2023 was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights — contends that his actions were taken in his official capacity as president and not as a private individual.
“Bottom of Form
In July, the U.S. Supreme Court’s right-wing justice— including three Trump appointees — ruled that the ex-president is entitled to ‘absolute immunity’ for ‘official acts’ taken while he was in office, raising questions about the future of this case. According to Smith’s motion:
“Although the defendant was the incumbent president during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one. Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt, through fraud and deceit, the government function by which votes are collected and counted—a function in which the defendant, as president, had no official role.
“In Trump v. United States… the Supreme Court held that presidents are immune from prosecution for certain official conduct—including the defendant’s use of the Justice Department in furtherance of his scheme, as was alleged in the original indictment—and remanded to this court to determine whether the remaining allegations against the defendant are immunized.
“The answer to that question is no. This motion provides a comprehensive account of the defendant’s private criminal conduct; sets forth the legal framework created by Trump for resolving immunity claims; applies that framework to establish that none of the defendant’s charged conduct is immunized because it either was unofficial or any presumptive immunity is rebutted; and requests the relief the government seeks, which is, at bottom, this: that the court determine that the defendant must stand trial for his private crimes as would any other citizen.
Smith’s filing details what Trump told various people in his inner circle, including then-Vice President Mike Pence, his now-disgraced and twice-disbarred lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and leading White House and Republican Party figures — some of whose names remain undisclosed.”
Smith’s motion states:
“When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office. With private co-conspirators, the defendant launched a series of increasingly desperate plans to overturn the legitimate election results in seven states that he had lost—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (the “targeted states”). His efforts included lying to state officials in order to induce them to ignore true vote counts; manufacturing fraudulent electoral votes in the targeted states; attempting to enlist Pence, in his role as president of the Senate, to obstruct Congress’ certification of the election by using the defendant’s fraudulent electoral votes; and when all else had failed, on January 6, 2021, directing an angry crowd of supporters to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification.”
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen and co-chair of the Not Above the Law Coalition praises Smith’s efforts says “Jack Smith has shown us yet again the merits of his case against former President Trump.”
“In his filing, Smith clarifies that the alleged criminal actions occurred while Trump was acting as a private citizen,” Gilbert added. “The desperate plan that Trump embarked on to try and overturn the results of a legitimate election was reprehensible, irresponsible, and — the document shows — criminal. Accountability to the American people and our democracy is our only path forward.”
#7– Encourages violence among his supporters
Sasha Abramsky reports on the fascist calls to violence by Trump and his supporters in an article on The Nation, Oct 4, 2024
“Late last week, in Erie, Pennsylvania, Trump, who has long fetishized what he sees as strongman behavior and language, took another leaf out of the Duterte and Bolsonaro playbooks. Specifically, he aped both authoritarians in their approach to crime and punishment.”
“Trump, in Erie, called for shoplifters to face ‘one really violent day’ and ‘one rough hour’ at the hands of the police, arguing that it was Democratic policy to coddle offenders, and that taking the gloves off in the fight against street crime was the only way to render communities safe again. In a rambling speech notable both for its utter lack of syntax and its extraordinary embrace of illegal violence by state and federal agents, Trump declared ruefully: ‘They’re [police officers] not allowed to do it, because the liberal left won’t let them do it. If you had one real, rough, nasty day with the drug stores as an example.… she [Harris] created something in San Francisco, $950 you’re allowed to steal; anything above that you will be prosecuted. Originally you saw kids walking with calculators, standing there with calculators adding it up. If you had one really violent day, put Congressman Mike Kelly [a local GOP representative who was attending the rally] in charge for one day. Mike, would you say, if you’re in charge, ‘Don’t touch them, let them rob your stores’?… it’s a chain of events, it’s so bad. One rough hour, and I mean real rough, the word will get out and it will end immediately, end immediately, it will end immediately.’”
Abramsky continues.
“The violent sentiments underpinning Trump’s word-salad sentences were in and of themselves appalling—as appalling as his reported desire during his time in the White House to let Border Patrol agents shoot undocumented immigrants in the legs as a form of deterrence. Equally disgusting was the reaction of his crowd. At each turn of phrase, at each homage to violence, the crowd roared its approval.
“There’s been a lot of talk recently about ‘understanding’ the Trump voter, about not tarring them all with their leader’s fetid brush. Good luck on that front. For, based on that particular interaction between cult leader and cult followers in Pennsylvania, I’d say a significant portion of them, at least the ones who think it a worthy investment of time and energy to attend a Trump rally, are now reveling in out-and-out fascist calls to violence. They’re supporting Trump not despite his propensity to devolve into ugly calls for clearly illegal acts of violence but because of it. And, in these rallies, they are provided the cover of numbers to give their worst, most vicious impulses free rein. That’s the emotional timbre of the lynch mob.”
Since the end of his presidency, Trump has “sought to invoke the Insurrection Act against racial justice protesters; and he described police violence as a ‘beautiful thing to watch.’ And while his 2016–20 presidency did see some criminal justice reform legislation signed into law, since then Trump has leaned into tough-on-crime policies: he has pledged to dramatically expand the use of the death penalty, to introduce summary executions for drug dealers, and Project 2025, which his campaign is closely tied to, has promised to pull back on federal probes into police violence against suspects. He has also repeatedly stated that he will use the Department of Justice to prosecute his political opponents, elections workers, and even members of the media.”
#8- A long record of ignoring the law
Abramsky also addresses this issue. “If the GOP and the MAGA movement were even remotely concerned with true crime fighting, they wouldn’t have nominated a man convicted of 34 felonies—not for stealing a few hundred dollars’ worth of drugstore items but for illegally paying off a porn star to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep quiet about her affair with Donald J. Trump. They would not have nominated a man whose business enterprises have been found to have committed fraud and who boasts about his fine-tuned ability to avoid paying taxes. They would not have nominated a man found liable for sexual abuse, fined millions of dollars for defaming the victim of that sexual abuse, and caught on tape bragging about his ability to grab and grope the private parts of any woman he wants. They would not have nominated a man twice impeached, once for holding up aid to Ukraine in hopes of strong-arming that country’s government into dishing up political dirt on Joe Biden, the other time for inciting an armed uprising aimed at preventing the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election. They would not have nominated a man facing dozens of additional state and federal felony charges for everything from hoarding top-secret documents through to trying to bully state officials in swing states into changing the election tallies to benefit Donald Trump.”
#9 – Trump suggests there will be violence if he loses the November Election and seems to welcome the thought
C. J. Polychroniou, a political economist/political scientist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. points to relevant information (https://commondreams.org/opinion/implications-2024-election-us). The article was published on August 24, 2024.
“The 2024 U.S. presidential election is enormously important for many of the reasons you cited, although we shouldn’t be oblivious of the fact that parochialism is what drives most American voters. That said, this election is indeed unlike any other in modern history also because American voters are so polarized that the threat of civil breakdown is real. In fact, I believe that Trump is already laying the groundwork for rejecting the election result if he loses. This is why he calls Democrats’ replacement of Biden a ‘coup’ and even ‘a violent overthrow’ of a president. And back in March, he said that there will be a ‘bloodbath’ if he loses the November election.
#10 – Dismisses the threat of global warming
Tob Engelhardt considers how Trump’s policies would intensify global warming in an article for Tom Dispatch, Sept 26 2024
(https://tomdispatch.com/in-a-lost-universe-with-you-know-who).
“After all, right now, in September 2024, we’re living on a planet that has never, not at any time in human history, been hotter. Our world has, in fact, been setting remarkable heat records, one after another, month after month — August was the 15th straight month to be the hottest of its kind ever — year after year. In fact, 2023 set a global heat record and 2024 has a 95% probability of smashing that record. And the weather of such an overheating planet should already be taking your breath away, even if we’re still early (more or less) in a process that could indeed create nothing less than a genuine hell on Earth.
“All the greenhouse gases that have been and are being sent into the planet’s atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels are creating ever more heat, about 90% of which is at present being absorbed by global waters and is already altering our world in stunning ways. Recently, for instance, there has been devastating climate-change-related flooding globally, whether you’re talking about parts of China, Nigeria, or most recently central Europe that suddenly found themselves underwater (while, by the way, Portugal was burning with more than 100 fires). The droughts have similarly been horrific, while the fires — oh, yes, those fires! — have been beyond fierce, including the recent blazes in Southern California and the 1.9 million (yes, 1.9 million!) acres scorched in Oregon’s record summer fire season. And don’t forget those Canadian fires of 2023 and 2024 that set such grim records in a world where “nearly 12 million hectares [of forests] — an area roughly the size of Nicaragua — burned in 2023, topping the previous record by about 24%.”
“And the heat? …. This year, records have been smashed again (and again) across the American West — and significant other parts of the planet.”
“In fact, to be fair to The Donald, while Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did indeed take some significant steps toward greening this country, mainly through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), during their time in office, the U.S. has remained the leader globally in producing oil and natural gas. In 2023, for the sixth year in a row, it set an all-time global record for oil production and another for natural gas exports. And don’t forget about methane, a truly potent greenhouse gas, where the American record is equally grim.
“Still, the man who demanded a billion dollars in campaign contributions from a group of leading oil executives and lobbyists at a dinner at Mar-a-Lago last spring, while promising to reverse Biden administration environmental rules and regulations, has, as Kamala Harris reminded us in their debate, repeatedly dismissed the phenomenon as a ‘hoax.’ Worse yet, it’s obvious that, should he enter the White House again, Trump and his compatriots are planning to let the fossil-fuel companies run wild and wreak havoc. He also plans to do his damnedest to limit the production of electric cars (despite the backing of Elon Musk) — ‘I will end the electric vehicle mandate on day 1’ — and so much else to ensure that we live on what, barring some remarkable surprise in the decades to come, will be a planet from… yes, hell.
“And oh yes, that Heritage Foundation plan, Project 2025, that he claims he hasn’t read (and it’s true that, as far as we know, he doesn’t read much, other perhaps than Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf or the collection of that monster’s speeches, which he once reportedly kept near his bed). Still, Project 2025, created by so many people connected to his first term in office, already promises, according to the Guardian‘s Oliver Milman, “a widespread evisceration of environmental protections, allowing for a glut of new oil and gas drilling, the repeal of the IRA and even the elimination of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service so they can be replaced by private companies. The conservative Heritage Foundation, which leads Project 2025, has said a new Trump administration should ‘eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere.’”
“The estimate is that if Project 2025’s authors have their way, the result will be an added 2.7 billion tons of carbon emissions by 2030 and 26 billion tons (no, that is not a misprint!) by 2050. A cheery prospect for sure on a planet already heating in a historic (or do I mean post-historic?) fashion.”
“We’re talking, of course, about the man who generally summarizes his stance on energy and this planet in a simple phrase: ‘Drill, baby, drill”’— sometimes adding ‘and drill now!’ Honestly, you couldn’t be blunter than that, could you, when it comes to the fate of our world?”
#11 – Trump’s Politicization of Hurricane Helene Is Scandalous, Even for Him
Ed Kilgore reports on Trump’s politicization of Hurricane Helene in an article on New York Magazine, Oct 7,2024 (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-politicization-of-hurricane-helene-is-scandalous.html).
Trump has been alleging without evidence of a highly incompetent and even indifferent Biden administration response. “As CNN reports, it’s mostly a pack of demonstrably fabricated lies:
“Though the Biden administration’s response had certainly received criticism, it had also been praised by various state and local leaders — including the Republican governors of some of the affected states and the Democratic governor of North Carolina, plus local leaders including the Democratic mayor of the hard-hit North Carolina city of Asheville.
“For example, Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said at a Tuesday press conference that federal assistance had ‘been superb,’ noting that Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had both called and told him to let them know whatever the state needed. McMaster also said FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell had called…. The FAA is coordinating closely with state and local officials to make sure everyone is operating safely in very crowded and congested airspace.”
Kilgore refers to NBC News reports:
“False claims that federal emergency disaster money was given to migrants in the U.S. illegally have spread quickly in recent days, boosted by former President Donald Trump and some of his most high-profile supporters. Trump repeated one of the more extreme baseless allegations during a rally Thursday in Saginaw, Michigan, saying that the money had been stolen.
More lies. Trump also said, “They stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.”
Combine all the false claims Team Trump is promoting right now “and they tell a tall tale of worthless deep-state bureaucrats (whom Trump wants to replace with loyalists once he’s back in office) politically persecuting his suffering followers (just like the Biden administration persecuted him via ‘lawfare’), as they pursue their horrifically anti-American project of drowning the country and its voters in a sea of violent pet-eating migrants deeper than any flood waters. Needless to say this campaign of slander offers Helene victims nothing other than another grievance and makes an ongoing tragedy just another chapter in the saga of Trump’s earth-scorching return to power.”
#12 – Trump would add twice as much to national debt as Harris
Jacob Bogage, who covers economic policy in Congress for The Washington Post, reports on a study documenting that Trump’s agenda would add to national debt (https://washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/07/harris-trump-national-debt).
“Trump’s campaign proposals would increase the ballooning national debt by $7.5 trillion; Harris’s would add $3.5 trillion, according to a nonpartisan think tank.”
“Trump has called for extending his 2017 tax cuts, which would add more than $5 trillion over 10 years to the United States’ $35.7 trillion national debt, according to a study from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). His plan to end taxes on overtime wages, Social Security benefits and tips would add another $3.6 trillion in debt. And his call for a nationwide campaign to detain and deport undocumented immigrants would cost $350 billion.
“Trump says major new tariffs on imports would bring in enough revenue to offset all the tax cuts, but the study doesn’t support that claim, and many economists say the tariffs would also drive prices up for U.S. consumers.
“All told, CRFB found that the Trump policies it studied would add $7.5 trillion of debt — more than twice as much as the Harris proposals the group scrutinized.
“Harris would add $3 trillion to the debt by extending the 2017 tax cuts for those earning less than $400,000 a year, and $1.35 trillion through a major expansion of the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit, according to the study. Harris’s campaign says those programs would cost far less.
“Major portions of Trump’s 2017 tax cut expire in 2025, and without new legislation, individual tax rates will increase sharply. Congress’s nonpartisan bookkeeper projects the nation’s debt-to-GDP ratio, a key metric of financial health, will reach a new all-time high within the next decade, imperiling financial stability. And Social Security and Medicare will also be insolvent by 2035 and 2036, respectively, forcing mandatory benefits cuts by those dates without congressional action.
“If we don’t take this seriously, it sort of becomes like bankruptcy, which happens very slowly and then suddenly, all at once,” said Jason Fichtner, chief economist at the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank. “What that means for individuals, households, consumers, investors, borrowers, is that they will see the value of the dollar decline. They’ll probably see interest rates go up and they will see inflation go up, as well. Does that mean an apocalypse and there’s nothing to buy anymore? No. It means things become more expensive and we have a hard time funding the things you want to pay for now, like roads, bridges and education.”
“Both candidates do have plans to raise some federal revenue: The tariffs Trump has proposed would reach as high as 20 percent on all $3 trillion of annual imports, which could bring in $2.7 trillion in revenue, according to CRFB.
“But, by some of his own economic advisers’ analysis, the tariffs could also dramatically increase prices and depress U.S. economic output, because producers often pass on the cost of import duties to consumers. Lower economic output might also mean lower tax revenue.
“‘Tariffs are just a tax, no question about it,’ Stephen Moore, an economist at the right-wing Heritage Foundation and a Trump economic adviser, told policymakers at an event hosted by Politico this spring. “I don’t always agree on everything with Donald Trump. He knows I don’t agree with the monetary policy. A tariff is just a consumption tax.”
“Trump would also dramatically expand domestic energy production and recoup funding from some of President Joe Biden’s climate investments, worth up to $700 billion. And Trump has pledged to end the Department of Education at a savings of $200 billion, though much of that money would probably have to be reprogrammed into state education grants.”
“Harris has said she would pay for each of her policy proposals, and under one budget model CRFB studied, her plans would not raise the debt at all.”
“Under the most realistic scenario CRFB studied, Harris would raise $900 billion in revenue by increasing the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent, plus another $900 billion from additional tax revenue. Much of that would be generated from new funding for the IRS to investigate tax cheats.
“Harris has not yet proposed new tax rates for those earning more than $400,000, but less than roughly $600,000. Rates for that tax bracket would be worked out in negotiations with Congress, she has said. Rates for the wealthiest earners would be set at 39.6 percent, according to Harris’s plan.
“The vice president would also increase tax rates on capital income, including on gains, dividends and corporate stock buybacks, for $850 billion in revenue, and allow Medicare to more aggressively negotiate prescription drug prices, worth $250 billion in debt reduction.”
Concluding thoughts
Trump’s presidential candidacy poses an existential threat to American democracy and to the wellbeing of the great majority of Americans. As discussed in this post, there are reasons to take the threat Trump poses seriously. The only way to stop him and his allies is to vote for Harris/Walz and other Democrats. The hope is that such votes would not only give the Democrats the advantage in the popular vote but also enough electoral college votes to certify their win. The hope then is that a Harris-led administration would continue the economic policies that have reduced inflation, raised wages, and created millions of jobs and address the problem with more determination than heretofore.
Vital issues - challenging pol and econ power 