Taxes and Glamour of the American Dreamers
Americans are Stupid, Trump is a Genius
You can forget the middle class promises as well as the promises of Biden to help the blacks. The poor have long since been forgotten. There is now no one in either party looking out for you.
No matter how many times we hear “Just follow the money,” we don’t.
As Tax Day 2022 just came and went, I was told by an online tax advisor that I have no more mortgage deduction, as it was phased out in the 2020 tax year. I knew this, and that it was the result of the mega trillion-dollar tax law passed by Trump, his only piece of legislation and one that only benefited the super-rich, the titans of industries, major corporations. And no one else.
No one I talked with last year seemed to get it, what he and the Republicans did, and Democrats let be done, and most were left wondering, who owned homes, mumbling in embarrassment, that they owed several thousand. The previous tax year they were getting back a thousand or two. My wife and I claimed zero dependents, despite our two kids, and we were single for tax purposes, despite that we were married. We also had extra money deducted.
That allowed a maximum deduction from our paychecks, leaving us a bit less than two thousand dollars back. So, we were slightly ahead at tax time instead of several thousand ahead. We lost about five thousand from the elimination of the mortgage tax.
Not this 2021 tax year. This year the child deduction was phased out. Despite our kids, we were told we weren’t getting the maximum deduction. No more child deduction for our bracket. This was the second phase out for a certain upper middle class.
My mom, a retiree late in life, said Good. As she believes in socialist ideas, that the rich should pay more. Granted, our class is not the poor, not the middle class like her, a pensioner, but those above the middle class, the above the two hundred thousand dollar a year range. We are not rich, but decent and would be sort of well off if not for debt. But the truth escapes her like it does most Trump and Biden voters.
The truth is that our loss from Trump’s tax bill is not going to the poor and middle class. Not at all.
Halliburton, a midsized service oil company, got their tax bill reduced by $750,000,000. That’s seven hundred and fifty million if you need it spelled out. That’s a bigger than midsized company. But major companies, the absolute top, FedEx and Amazon for example, got theirs reduced to zero, a complete reduction. Other major companies got massive breaks, practically across the board. It was a massive tax break. I would call them super lucky if luck was involved instead of the high-end skill of hundreds of high-paid lobbyists.
How can America afford massive tax reductions, losing major revenue from some of the biggest payers? Simple. They (the DC politicians of both parties) spread the tax over the upper middle class. Collectively, taking $10,000 or so more from everyone in a certain class makes up for the corporate loss.
The Trump tax bill is thus brilliant. How can the semi- and almost-rich complain? The vast middle and lower class would simply say “Shut up and pay more taxes.” “Boo-hoo, no one is crying for your elitists.” The Republicans have branded the Dems as elitist and have been thus “trained” to hate them anyway. The Democrats are “socialists” that want the poor and middle class to get “free” health care for all, free pre-schools, elimination of homelessness.
Nobody wants to hear those in an upper middle class complain.
And I can’t blame them. But they simply don’t and can’t and won’t understand what happened last year and this year with the Trump Tax Bill: the Big Phase Out. Taxes were phased out for the rich, not in favor of the poor. If I would have known an extra ten grand taken from my household income was going for universal pre-K and pre-school and to eradicate homelessness, I would be glad. I wouldn’t grumble or complain. Paying $10,000 more per year is fine if it went for those that need it. I would “happily” pay (even though I can’t speak for my wife and neighbors who might still grumble), while still being able to live a high-end life.
But that’s not what happened you stupid Americans!
Instead, the defense bill will rise almost $80 billion if Biden gets his way as he just announced. Remember, he is a Democrat. And it will go up even higher if the Republicans negotiate with him to drive it upwards. God Americans are stupid. That raise will be in addition to the major tax break for the super-rich, the major corporations, the filthy dirty rich, the mega-moguls.
Yet dumb, dumb, dumb us, Americans, will still look at the daily Elon Musk emails and tweets in admiration, like he’s some wonderful genius, instead of a grand thief and major villain. He is evil. Like the rest of them, because they are not moral people. They are immoral, full of avarice. They are not constantly advocating for the poor: the end to homelessness, the 11 percent who do NOT have Obamacare because they don’t qualify, and universal free pre-school.
They instead constantly talk about wealth. And please don’t mention Bill Gates health fund to give malaria shots, which has spent a few billion in the same period his wealth increased from $68 to $178 Billion. That generosity is the kind that is a rounding error on his balance sheet.
All of these major problems could be solved by all the mega-rich tweeting and telling Biden to give next year’s defense raise to the poor’s problems instead of the military industrial complex. Will Smith and Chris Rock could unite onstage and say, “Please America, stop talking about the dumb Oscar slap and tell Biden and all politicians to pay for the poor.” All Hollywood, rap, pop and Nashville stars that act as judges could make this demand at the beginning of every America’s Got Money Voice My Talent type program.
But none of these people, none of those with voices, political voices, the beyond-rich, speak from the moral center of their being. Instead, they talk of petty issues, unable to come together on anything for the Greater Good. Just like Biden and Trump and all the politicians frankly don’t talk about the moral good, the public good, and doing what is right.
That is how Trump was an evil genius: the old bait and switch, the magician’s ultimate weapon: the Art of Misdirection. They get us Americans so concentrated on the moral outrage of the lies and bigotry and polarized divisions that our attention is deflected away from the other hand slyly doing the trick, stealing your wallet. Rich moguls are what the Republicans stare at in admiration; music and movie stars are the bright shiny objects liberal Democrats stare at. Our children dream of being both.
And that is how we are all fooled. We follow the money of the glamorous rich instead of the lack of it in the unglamorous poor.
