By Hunter Wallace
In The Wall Street Journal, Mort Kondracke and Fred Barnes – both Republican establishment regulars on FOX News – are pining for a Jack Kemp Republican in 2016:
“Kemp was a pivotal political leader because, as the foremost exponent of supply-side economics, he persuaded his party and later Ronald Reagan to adopt his tax-cut plan, known as “Kemp-Roth.” The top tax rate on individual income dropped in 1981 to 50% from 70%. Then Kemp helped pioneer tax reform, and the top rate fell in 1986 to 28%. Middle-income taxpayers enjoyed similar cuts. …
Some candidates are trying. Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and Marco Rubio have put forward interesting economic plans. Even Donald Trump says he will have a tax plan shortly. Mr. Bush’s tax reform initiative, with its top rate of 28%, is especially Kemp-like. …
The Republican Party and the country do need another Jack Kemp. The GOP debates and primaries ought to be about finding one”
Mort and Fred obviously had ¡Jeb! in mind when they claim “the essence of America is the “right to rise,” but Trump goes even further down the Jack Kemp road of supply-side economics:
“As for the (ludicrous) plan itself: It’s as though Trump read a copy of the Jeb Bush plan, thought about it for a moment, and then tossed it at an underling, yelling, “We should do this, but make it more tremendous, more marvelous!” That’s pretty much what Trump is offering. Bush would cut the top income tax rate for rich people to 28 percent, Trump to 25 percent. Bush would lower the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, Trump to 15 percent. Bush would take 15 million Americans off the income tax rolls, Trump would take off 75 million — all of whom, according to Trump, would get “a new one page form to send the IRS saying, ‘I win.'” Oh, and while the Bush plan would lose $3 trillion over a decade — not counting economic feedback — Trump’s might lose multiples of that. No amount of “dynamic scoring” is likely to make Trump’s numbers even approach balance.”
Here’s some perspective:
Trump’s tax plan would take the top rate on individuals down to where it was – 25 percent – during Herbert Hoover’s presidency on the eve of the Great Depression. Just like in the 1920s, it is a surefire prescription for an even more powerful oligarchy and even greater extremes of wealth than what we already have today.
Do you think Millennials – the Boomerang generation – already have it bad now? Just imagine how much worse it would be with the massive spending cuts that Trump’s plan would require. Far from “taking back America,” this will only stimulate Occupy Wall Street and Bernie Sanders-style populist movements which like Obama in 2008 any number of nutty leftwing social reforms could piggyback into power.
B.S. I don´t give a dman about his tax plan, though I believe it will be, on the whole, positive. Trump must be elected to stop the so-called “Progressive MOvedment” and the immigration wave in their tracks. Nothing else matters so much. We can deal with fucking tax rates later. If we do not get the Democrats out and a strong-minded guy like Trump in to stop thye alien tide, we are wasting our time talking about taxes. There won´t be any America. Can´t you get that through your heads? You are worried about the toilet not flushing when the entire septic tank is about to be dropped on your heads! Wake up, for God´s sake!
Very surprised at the direction you’ve taken in regards to big government Hunter…especially since the historic South and all Southern pride/Southern nationalist movements have always been so focused on community and states’ rights.
Look at it this way: if you believe the federal government in 21st century America is a force for good that improves the lives of White Southerners (our people), then your position here makes total sense. We should take as much money as we can from well-off folks (and we’re not taking about “oligarchs” here, we’re talking about people making $300,000 or more, and that’s A LOT of people, the vast majority of them being White).
But if you believe, as I do, that the federal govt in 21st-century America has been irretrievably corrupted by anti-White and anti-Christian forces, then taking money from prosperous White folks and giving it to the government is a terrible idea, full stop.
Again, it should be stressed that the VAST majority of people who would benefit from the tax rate being lowered in the top bracket are successful White people…not Jewish oligarchs or anyone else.
“Populist” economics sound fine in theory, especially to those who haven’t yet prospered economically, but make no mistake: this isn’t Scandinavia. In the USA, redistribution of wealth means taking money from the White man and giving it to the non-Whites, plain and simple.
If a White man’s economic situation is more closely-aligned with non-Whites– i.e. too broke to afford a comfortable life– then it’s up to the White man to pull himself up by the bootstraps and go earn more money. I’ve worked a few jobs I didn’t like, and I’m sure others have as well. Wealth/standard of living is one of the last things that White people truly have over others in this country, and it’s a damn good thing to have.
That’s why large-scale redistribution of wealth is a cornerstone goal of the leftist Anti-White crowd. They would wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments here.
This is really unfair. Jack Kemp was about the worst cuckservative xenophile ever. Nobody but nobody thinks that about Trump, even if one wishes he was even more of an immigration restrictionist than he’s promising to be.
Marginal tax rates on income did not cause the Great Depression.
Having owned small businesses I can guarantee that struggling mom and pop business owners and entrepreneurs across the board will be doing cartwheels. His tax proposal will also help them tremendously. Finally!
Trump: My plan states that any business of any size will pay no more than 15% of its business income in taxes. This low rate will make corporate inversions unnecessary and will make America one of the most competitive markets in the world. This plan will also require companies with capital offshore to bring that money back to the U.S. at a repatriation rate of only 10%. Right now, the money is not being brought back because the tax is so high.
Two things I wish Trump would do, and there’s still time for him to do it:
1. Revive an idea he floated back in 2000 when he was toying with a run for President on the Reform Party, of a one time wealth tax on the static net worths of very very large fortunes. The problem was that his percentage was too high (14.25%) and would have caused too much havoc. But it is a good idea to do a smaller percentage, maybe 0.25 to 1%, and do it on an annual basis.
2. The Romney Rule for deductions. While not eliminating any deductions, cap the total annual dollar amount of deductions that one can take, so that the very rich can’t hide a lot of income behind too many deductions.
Running as Mitt Romney on steroids is about the last thing that will stop the progressive movement in its tracks. Instead, it will just fuel leftwing populist movements like Obama in 2008 and now Bernie Sanders.
As I understand it, lowering taxes always raises government income, while increasing taxes always kills the economy.
And you’re always going to have oligarchs, since all governments are oligarchies even the dictatorships. What you have to do is find a way to punish anti-white oligarchs and encourage pro white ones.
1.) Why should anyone who isn’t a fool want to return to the Gilded Age era South?
2.) I don’t believe the Jewish oligarchy is on our side. I don’t see how cutting Sheldon Adelson’s taxes helps our cause either.
3.) Trump 2016 … making life terrific for billionaires, so that millions of more White Millennials can live in mom’s basement and vote for Bernie Sanders.
Was the economy better or worse in the 1950s when the top rate was 92 percent?
Mitt Romney won a higher percentage of Whites than Reagan. Look at the electoral map if voting was restricted to White males in 2012.
http://therightstuff.biz/content/images/2015/08/enhanced-buzz-wide-1035-1352488120-4-1.jpg
Politics is largely a matter of race.
Is an independent south the path to higher taxes on the rich? There is an incongruity here: I view independence as a sure fire way to slash taxes and regulation and let a rising tide lift all boats. The rich don’t have their wealth in gem stones and fine art. It is in ownership of the means of production; which only have value when they can generate a sale, meaning sufficient benefit for the consumer.
How high should taxes be on the rich? Is what we have now correct, not enough?
“Instead, it will just fuel leftwing populist movements like Obama in 2008 and now Bernie Sanders.” Bringing us that much closer to partition? I’m just not sure about this line of reasoning, especially when very few pieces of legislation survive as proposed. Don Trump is trying to win the nomination en route to the Presidency. He is talking about building a wall and removing all illegals in two years. There is enough populism there for a lifetime.
As I understand it, libertarian economics leads inexorably to an economy that benefits only the ultra rich. The huge wealth disparities grow to the point where it leads to class warfare before the economy capsizes into depressions.
Was the life expectancy higher or lower in the 1950s when the top tax rate was 92 percent?
Trying to punish all of the super rich is not going to work. Never has, because they will always run things behind the scenes. All governments are oligarchies all of them. All through history money greases the wheels.
Again, what you want to do is to find a way to punish anti-white rich like Sheldon Adelson and encourage the rise of pro white oligarchs. Only when there are pro white oligarchs running things, will whites have real power.
>3.) Trump 2016 … making life terrific for billionaires, so that millions of more White Millennials can live in mom’s basement and vote for Bernie Sanders.
There is no historical evidence for that. When left wingers get in power, they always destroy the economy with heavy taxes and that means living in Mom’s basement. The best welfare is a job.
Romney lost the election because he was rejected by too many White voters in key states like Ohio.
“Was the economy better or worse in the 1950s when the top rate was 92 percent?”
1950s was after WW2 and America had the only industry on the planet. Of course they were good times. The US was rebuilding the world.
Really?
Was it the Boomers who graduated from college and moved into mom’s basement in the 1960s and 1970s or is it the Millennials in the 2000s and 2010s?
Therefore communism is the key to alleviate wealth disparities and to prevent oligarchs from running the country. After all, it worked so well in the Soviet Union.
Had the demographics in 2012 been the same as 1980 and 1984, Romney would have won in a landslide.
Yeah, but what is the Republican Congress more likely to pass: the tax plan or the immigration plan?
Among other things, we need a tax policy geared toward muting class based antagonism rather than making life easier for hostile billionaires at the expense of young couples.
Romney lost because too many Whites in key states correctly intuited that his economic policies were not in their self interest and either sat out the election or voted for Obama because he reminded them of their boss.
In Alabama and Mississippi, politics is a matter of race, but not nearly so much in the states Romney lost. In the South, he lost the two states where Obama won the greatest percentage of the White vote.
Doing my best Jack Ryan impersonation here.
Why are we throwing Trump under the bus because of TAXES?
They’re taxes, hardly the most existential consequential of issues.
We shouldn’t argue over folding chair arrangements on the deck of the Titanic.
Taxes are not the most important issue to us, but money is absolutely the most important thing to the GOP and the donor class that finances and controls it.
Trump has effectively lost the election.
If he wins the nomination, whoever opposes him will frame him as Mitt Romney on steroids. Rather than taking the issue away, he has done exactly the opposite here.
For a libertarian economy to exist, there would be no taxes, regulations, subsidies, tariffs, or trade quotas. And most importantly, there would be no central banking or fiat currency. There would be absolutely no government interference in the economy. The riole of government would be limited to being a referee or night watchman. The government would prosecute fraud and unjust coercion and/or threats of violence but would play no role in managing the economy. There has never been any modern economy that could be described as libertarian. Therefore, there is no one who has demonstrated either empirically or analytically that a libertarian would result in all the things that you describe. I think the word “libertarian” triggers a negative reaction in you. The idea that the oligarchs who rule over us are somehow libertarian is hilarious. To the extend that RawPaw achieved some success is due to his libertarian populism in that he attacked the central bankers and the warfare state.
How do you explain both McCain and Romney winning West Virginia, which has been traditionally Democrat?
Imagine the Gilded Age where a Rockefeller could purchase a US Senate seat, but without tariffs that protected American jobs and wages.
Except when it could be the handmaiden of a corporate oligarchy to break up strikes and things of that nature.
Gilded Age America or Britain for much of the 19th century comes the closest to the ideal.
Lord over us is more like it.
Rand Paul is going nowhere because most of Ron Paul’s former supporters were never libertarians to begin with.
Romney did better across that whole swath of the Upper South because of Obama’s social liberalism. It didn’t play so well elsewhere.
The only “Southern” state Romney lost in 2012 is Florida. I use “Southern” in quotes because the state has been inundated with immigrants and NETs. As of late, it has been more of a swing state. He was actually predicted to win.
If you look at this map, Romney did extremely well with rural working class Whites. He lost because of
1. Liberals in the northeast
2. Urban areas.
3. Hispanic areas in S Florida, the Texas border, and New Mexico.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/2012-election-county-by-county/2012-election-county-by-county/
I don’t yet know what to make of Trump’s tax plan. I also think that Trump’s path to victory is to appeal to working class whites who would either sit out the election or vote for the Democrat. However, there may be parts of this tax plan that will appeal to them. In any case, I still support Trump because he is the only candidate that will push for a border wall if elected.
Hunter Wallace
‘Taxes are not the most important issue to us, but money is absolutely the most important thing to the GOP and the donor class that finances and controls it.’
Taxes may not be the most important issue but money is important, crucial, essential to everyone, whether at the top or bottom of food chain.
The more I can earn and keep the better off I am regardless who runs the show.
Romney lost Florida and Virginia and barely won North Carolina. In all three cases, the cause was White turnout for Obama was much higher than the regional average.
Trump’s tax plan will just feed into Bernie Sanders-style populism on the Left or demoralize and alienate the White voters he needs to beat Hillary.
By libertarian economics, I mean an economy that grows, but which only benefits foreign workers and billionaires and which leaves millions of White Millennials living in mom’s basement and voting for Sanders.
The only reason why Rockefeller would buy a Senate seat is to influence government to benefit his business. Therefore, the economy would not be libertarian.
Governments actually played a role in breaking strikes on behalf of the oligarchs. Please re-read what I said about the government having no role in the economy.
Did I miss something or did everyone die during the Gilded Age? Were you read scary bedtime stories while growing up? It’s comical how you keep going on and on about it.
Agreed. But they were not libertarian.
I think the people who were anti Fed and anti War were libertarians. But the buttsex, drugs, and Rock n Roll young hipsters were just libertines rebelling against authority.
Romney and Ryan lost Belmont and Janesville.
I don’t think this would be the case. Big business would still be powerful but they won’t be able to leverage big government to ensure their profits or eliminate competition as they do today. Even during the Gilded Age businesses regularly leveraged government to their advantage.
countenance
‘This is really unfair. Jack Kemp was about the worst cuckservative xenophile ever.’
Absolutely. Trump’s immigration proposals would have Kemp turning in his grave.
That’s what libertarianism leads to in practice: a weak government that is the plaything of a corporate oligarchy lording it over a captive and degraded working class.
In abstract theory, the government won’t have any role in the economy. In practice, the government becomes a tool of oligarchs whose concentrated wealth gives them the power to bend the government to their will.
That’s because we know how libertarianism works in practice from Gilded Age America and Victorian Britain.
Close enough.
It means pellagra, company towns, child labor, mass illiteracy, and monopolies. It was a period of history where millions of White Southerners were so dirt poor that their intelligence was depressed by hookworms because they couldn’t afford shoes.
I forgot that Va is a “Southern” state. Virginia is dominated by NETs and NoVa, which is one big suburb of DC. NC gets a major pull to the left in Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro, and Asheville, which are NET enclaves.
Like I said, there’s been no libertarian government.
Would having had lost the Civil War (sic) have anything to do with the level of poverty in the South. Was the same level of poverty and illiteracy present in Antebellum South?
White people aren’t poor helpless black Africans. Whites have the capability to build a wealthy and prosperous society. The Gilded Age didn’t hold anyone back.
1.) Gilded Age America and Victorian Britain are the closest approximations of the libertarian ideal and illustrate what classical liberalism looks like in practice.
2.) The “Civil War” extended the North’s social and economic system to the postwar South.
There was no reconstruction along the lines of postwar Germany and Japan. Under classical liberalism, that would have been considered a “government handout.”
3.) Whites are capable of building wealthy, prosperous societies, but we choose whether that economic growth benefits a small minority of billionaires and their foreign workforces, then as now, or is distributed more broadly across society as it was in the US after WW2.
Libertarians want to combine the taxes, spending, and regulation of the Gilded Age with today’s trade policies and a commitment to open borders.
More here:
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/255278-donald-trumps-tax-plan-12t-price-tag
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/business/dealbook/trump-tax-plan-a-triumph-of-showmanship-over-common-sense.html?_r=0&referer=https://www.google.com/
“The Tax Foundation found that the top 1 percent of earners would see their after-tax income rise between 21.6 percent and 27 percent under Trump’s plan. The bottom 30 percent of taxpayers, on the other hand, would gain anywhere from 0.6 percent to 11.5 percent in after-tax income.”
Again, why are we arguing over this?
Politically this won’t matter at all unless what Trump proposed is extraordinarily stupid, which it is not. A lot of the people praising him for this plan won’t endorse or vote for him, and in fact, will continue to wish that he doesn’t win, because of Trump’s immigration and trade pronouncements and proposals. You seem to think that Trump has somehow lost the election, because he lost the kind of white millennial who does Occutard and Bernie Sanders; Trump was never going to get their votes anyway, nor do they really matter in terms of electoral politics. If you don’t think the tax proposals are actually populist, then the official white paper on Trump’s website certainly couches them in a lot of populist rhetoric.
If I have a big problem with these plans, it’s that they exempt so many more people from actual FIT liability. So many people who could easily afford to have a little skin in the game won’t need to have any. But, once again, it’s far from a deal breaker. It’s taxes, not immigration.
One more thing: You almost always have to take candidate white papers with a grain of salt, because not much of the contents ever make it to law.
In 2014, stopping Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty was the bait and Obamatrade was the hook. When the Republicans took over Congress, what did they do?
The Gilded Age doesn’t meet any of the prerequisites for a libertarian economy. An economy that’s been due to government intervention by oligarchs is not a libertarian approximation. Here is a good write up on the impacts of the Gilded Age to the South
http://www.austincc.edu/lpatrick/his1302/agrarian.html
On Tariffs
On monetary policy
Much of the suffering in the South during the Gilded Age was due to war, tariffs and monetary policy. Wars, tariffs and central monetary control are not libertarian policies. Therefore, there is no libertarian approximation.
Under a libertarian legal system, any entity that destroys the life and/or property of another is required to repay the aggrieved party. Therefore, rebuilding the South would not qualify as a handout since the Union was the entity that destroyed the property of Southerners.
If you like post WW2 America, make sure to hug an oligarch as it was most of their doing. First, the US benefitted prior to its entry into WW2 by selling to Europearms (in exchange for gold) so that Whites could kill other Whites. Then the oligarchs got the US involved in WW2 so that our Whites could kill other Whites in Europe. And post WW2, Europe and Asia was in a position that’s was similar to the South post Civil War. Their cities, towns, infrastructure, and capital was destroyed but the US remained intact. This allowed the US oligarchs to politically dominate other countries (just as they did to the South post Civil War). What came out of WW2 was realigning of the world’s monetary system around the US dollar. The Bretton Woods agreement pegged all currencies to the dollar with the dollar convertible to gold. Having this control of the world’s monetary system (thanks to the oligarchs) allowed the US to access cheap raw goods from around the world in exchange for paper and ink. Although the dollar was to be honest money that was to be fully convertible to gold, the oligarchs cheated the system (which also helped the common man). By the 60s the world figured out that the US had printed far more dollars than it had in gold reserves and by 1974 Nixon closed the gold window. The post WW2 period was a unique and prosperous time in America that the oligarchs gave us. Too bad we won’t see those days again.
I screwed up the HTML tags in my previous posts. Please delete them
There’s nothing remotely populist about Trump’s tax plan:
http://www.nationalreview.com/2016-gops-four-faces/424786/trumps-tax-plan-not-populist