Evan Vucci/AP Photo
Donald Trump just finished reading his big economic policy speech from a teleprompter. He’s really bad at reading from a teleprompter, looking alternately bored and outraged. Here are the pieces that caught my eye:
- Huge tax cut for the rich.
- But no spending cuts that he’s willing to admit to.
- End of estate taxes.
- Cut corporate tax rate to 15 percent.
- Allow corporations to repatriate foreign earnings at a special 10 percent rate.
- Declare China a currency manipulator, even though their currency is currently overvalued, not undervalued. A market rate for the renminbi would make Chinese imports even cheaper.
- Slash regulations on corporations.
- Pretend global warming doesn’t exist.
- Ban all new financial regulation.
- Repeal Obamacare.
- Implement a childcare tax deduction instead of a tax credit.
- He will work with Ivanka on a childcare plan. Because, I guess, Ivanka has kids, so she’s an expert on the problems that low-income
workers have with childcare.
This is not exhaustive, and most of the speech was just the usual tired Republican orthodoxy. Mitt Romney could have given 90 percent of it. There was also a lot of random guff about how disastrous the economy is; how the unemployment rate is a hoax; and how American energy, planes, cars, steel, and so forth will employ way more American workers once Trump becomes president.
You bet. As near as I can tell, literally every single one of his proposals above would benefit the rich and do virtually nothing for the working and middle classes. But he sure knows how to put a populist spin on giveaways to the rich, doesn’t he?
