Candidate Evaluations: Donald Trump
by Benjamin Studebaker
Donald Trump is running for president. A few people have told me I shouldn’t do an evaluation for Trump, that to write one for him treats him with a level of seriousness he’s not entitled to. But here’s the deal folks–as of late May and early June, Donald Trump polls at 4% among republican primary voters. That may not sound like a lot, but he has roughly twice as many supporters as George Pataki, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, or Rick Santorum. In some polls, he also tops Rick Perry. And as we’ve seen over the course of this series, there are a great many serious candidates for president who have said outlandish things or taken reactionary positions. So I’m going to do an evaluation for Trump, because he really isn’t that much crazier or that much less popular than many of the republican candidates I’ve already done. Before we begin, here’s a quick reminder of what we’re doing. I’ll be evaluating Trump’s background, policy history, and explicit statements to determine whether or not he would make a good president. I won’t be paying attention to electability or likeability, as is often common elsewhere on the web.
For fans of the evaluations series, here are all the other ones we’ve done in the order we did them:
- Ted Cruz
- Rand Paul
- Hillary Clinton
- Marco Rubio
- Bernie Sanders
- Ben Carson
- Carly Fiorina
- Mike Huckabee
- Rick Santorum
- George Pataki
- Martin O’Malley
- Lindsey Graham
- Rick Perry
- Lincoln Chafee
- Jeb Bush
This is Donald Trump:
Trump has a BS in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, the Ivy League School. Trump is a real estate magnate–his net worth is estimated at somewhere between $4.1 and $8.7 billion. He’s also the executive producer and host of The Apprentice, a reality TV program. He has never held any political office of any kind, though he has considered running for president many times, including 1988, 2000, 2004, 2012, and in this upcoming election. He also considered runs for governor of New York in 2006 and 2014. Despite his lack of experience and his reputation for off the cuff, id-driven statements (his nearest British analogue has to be London Mayor Boris Johnson), Trump has occasionally attracted serious interest. In 2011, he briefly led all republican candidates in the polls, including eventual 2012 nominee Mitt Romney. He also tied for 6th on Gallup’s 2011 list of most admired men.
Like Ben Carson, Trump has no voting record, no gubernatorial record, no history of political decision-making on which to base his evaluation, so we have to pay extra close attention to his explicit statements. Here’s what we’ve got:
In Time to Get Tough: Making America Great Again, Trump outlines his economic policy agenda:
If we want jobs in America, we need to enact my 5-part tax policy: kill the death tax; lower the tax rates on capital gains & dividends; eliminate corporate taxes in order to create more American jobs; mandate a 15% tax for outsourcing jobs and a 20% tax for importing goods, and enact the 1-5-10-15 income tax plan.
The “1-5-10-15” refers to Trump’s proposed tax rates on his four different brackets. There is a lot wrong with this. For one, his tax rates are much too small to make up for all the revenue Trump gives up by eliminating estate and corporate taxes and well as reducing rates on capital gains. Even assuming that Trump were to eliminate tax loopholes so that his 1-5-10-15 marginal rates really did reflect the effective tax rates, those numbers are far short of the effective rates that have been paid in recent years. For instance, in 2011, everyone paid higher effective rates of tax than Trump is proposing:
The tax cuts Trump proposes are highest for those at the top of the distribution, so Trump’s plan would also increase economic inequalities. To offset the reduction in revenue, Trump proposes sweeping austerity. He claims that the cuts passed during the sequestration fight are not nearly enough. What would Trump cut? It’s hard to say. He has not been very specific about it, but he has consistently over the years made many statements in opposition to welfare and public assistance, so we can safely presume that the poor would be targeted.
Now, all of this sounds quite right wing and extreme, but I want to point something out–the 1-5-10-15 plan is much more moderate than the flat tax and fair tax plans other republican candidates have proposed. Flat tax and fair tax are extremely regressive policies, they make 1-5-10-15 look downright socialist by comparison. Don’t get me wrong, 1-5-10-15 is an awful plan, but it isn’t as bad as the plans Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ben Carson have proposed. On economic issues, Donald Trump is a better candidate than all of those people. That doesn’t say much, but it does say something. Rubio and Carson poll competitively with Jeb Bush.
Trump is against cutting social security and Medicare, and he supports some gun control policies. He’s not the most right wing person in this race, and there are candidates who are less reasonable than he is who are more popular and taken more seriously. He doesn’t really care about social issues, changing his position on abortion and homosexuality to suit whatever his audience wants to hear. He’s goes too far with the indiscriminate tax hike on imports, but he does seem to realize that making American workers compete for jobs against wage slaves in developing countries is a losing proposition and that free trade deals should be subjected to scrutiny.
But then there’s stuff like this:
This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps, and our GW scientists are stuck in ice
And this:
Everything about Obamacare is a lie, a filthy lie.
Nevermind the piles of evidence that Obamacare works. And on immigration, he’s flat-out bonkers:
When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.
The CBO has confirmed that immigrants from Latin America actually save the government money (about $19,000 per decade per immigrant):
But even with all of that, he’s still capable of making the right noises about Iraq:
We should have never been there in the first place. We should not go back. The problem with going back, and even being there, is the day we leave somebody else is going to take over.
Yet he makes the wrong noises about Iran:
Take a look at the deal he’s making with Iran. If he makes that deal, Israel maybe won’t exist very long. It’s a disaster.
Israel has an independent nuclear deterrent, so the idea that any country could pose an existential threat to it displays sweeping ignorance of the history of nuclear weapons.
And then there’s his role in the ridiculous birther conspiracy theory, which alleges that Barack Obama was actually born in Kenya and therefore is not legally qualified to be president. Said Trump:
He doesn’t have a birth certificate. He may have one but there’s something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim. I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want that. Or he may not have one. But I will tell you this. If he wasn’t born in this country, it’s one of the great scams of all time.
Today, he’s saying similar things about Ted Cruz:
He was born in Canada … if you know … and when we all studied our history lessons … you’re supposed to be born in this country, so I just don’t know how the courts would rule on it. But it’s an additional hurdle that he has that no one else seems to have.
Conclusion:
Donald Trump claims to believe a lot of things that a reasonable person cannot believe. Maybe he plays it up as some kind of strategy, maybe it’s genuine. I don’t know. What I can tell you is that the explicit policies he has called for are not good policies, and that he shouldn’t be president. But you probably knew that before you started reading this piece. Odds are, you came here hoping to have a laugh at Trump’s expense, and that’s fine. But I want to make it absolutely clear–Donald Trump is not the worst candidate I have reviewed. There are a number of republican candidates that are worse than he is. Some of them have more support than he has, and some of them are taken much more seriously by the media. Some of them have been governors and senators, and yet the policies they have proposed are even more reactionary, id-driven, and lunatic. When I started writing this evaluation, I didn’t know this, and I doubt you knew it before you read this. The media is doing a spectacularly pathetic and inept job of keeping us informed about what these people believe and what the consequences of those beliefs might be if they become policies. Shame on us all for having a society in which you can be more unreasonable than Donald Trump and become a governor, a senator, or even a semi-serious candidate for president. Shame. Shame. Shame.
Update:
Donald Trump has since released a new and different tax plan. It’s regressive and does not raise sufficient revenue, but it’s not quite as nutty as the 1-5-10-15 plan. I discuss it in detail here.
Donald Trump fits in the 13-18 percent of American adults who are clinically insane.
Benjamin, you have depressed me yet again.
Benjamin, I have a question that is off the immediate point of a fool rushing in where very few angels brave to tread.
The news from England — and all of Europe, for that matter — over the continuing “austerity” programs now (at last!) being protested by the general public baffles me — and has done so for a long time, now.
Is John Maynard Keynes and his works unknown in Europe?? Does the name of John Kenneth Galbraith bring only a puzzle to the face of German economists? What on earth makes European governments believe that deep recessions and threatened worldwide economic crashes are best addressed by cutting government spending rather than increasing it; adopting policies that throw people out of work rather than get them back to work; and insisting on raising taxes (e.g. Greece) rather than lowering them?
Is all of Europe now effectively run by jack-booted bankers? Aren’t they essentially the same gang who helped greatly to cause the great crash of 2007-2008? And what’s with everyone in Europe letting the Germans dictate what all the people in other countries must do? Didn’t Germany lose a rather well known war when it tried to do just that, once before?
You have lived in England. You must speak the language. A translation, please! Or at least an explanation?
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-33210014
The western world is in the grip of a slow process of forgetting in which the economic and political lessons that were widespread in the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s slowly fall further and further from mainstream knowledge. There are significant numbers of economists and political scientists who are pointing out what’s going wrong, but the journalists, bankers, and politicians are not listening to these people. This is a chronic condition, a collective social dementia.
Benjamin, I am proverbially wringing my hands over Greece. If you haven’t heard it, try to listen to a podcast version of today’s “The Inquiry” on BBC radio. (“Would Greece Be Better Off Out of the Euro?”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02tv4v4
I wasn’t particularly impressed with any of the three experts in the period before the hour. A bit superficial; the format was too time-cramped for more, I suppose. Overall, however, at least some of the economic, political, and social dilemmas facing Greece were outlined in stark terms. I was especially disturbed to hear from one that the unavoidable pain arising from a return to the drachma well might embolden the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party. Unless something changes soon, Greece could become a failed state.
The brief discussion (“Witness”) that followed after the hour was a bit better on one or two points, though I’m not sure it’s in the podcast (I listened live).
“Structural reforms” certainly are needed, though the list of items discussed was rather short and how to check them off left to the imagination. Simplify tax policy. Strengthen tax receipt enforcement. Restructure domestic production. Export more. Do something about the oligarchs who historically have owned the economy. Cut down on excess public sector employees. Two claimed there is an “excess” of private entrepreneurs ‘who can dodge taxes too easily’ (a complaint I’ve never heard about anywhere else before).
Not mentioned, but dredged up from some hidden recess of my mind: What helped Argentina overcome its own crisis? Are there any lessons there?
Also from my memory of a month in Greece quite some time ago: 10-plus story business buildings in Athens deliberately left 90% complete, so I was told, because taxes must be paid only when finished, not when the finished parts are occupied by paying tenants.
One point made near the end of the podcast seems sensible to me: The European Union needs to reform, too. Nations in the Eurozone need to commit to helping all who are in it, not just the richest (i.e. Germany). That’s not exactly in the DNA of Germany, is it?
I am reminded of the U.S. (and I imagine Great Britain), where it remains a fact that national revenue receipts annually are re-distributed to smooth out the geographical lumps. In the U.S., richer (mostly northern) states send more money to Washington than they get back — and don’t complain much; poorer states (ironically, many of them former Confederate states) annually receive more from Washington than they contribute — and rarely thank Washington for it. Maybe this is a result of federalism; more likely it’s force of habit; possibly it’s just because some level we’re like family.
The whole subject of Greece also reminds me of something my father, long dead now, once said. The subject of “Economics” originally was known (in Thorstein Veblen’s time) as “Political Economy.” It’s a more accurate description, I am persuaded, because it doesn’t contain the pretense of economics being somehow separate from politics. Greece’s economic problems certainly have an inextricable political component, too.
What do you think should be done for or about Greece? Is there any hope?
“Political economy” is still a thing–many people who study the interplay between economic and political issues still call this “political economy”, and there are political economy journals.
I agree that what’s really needed in the EU is a truly independent federal government that has its own military forces and sovereignty over the member states. This is the only way to prevent the EU from working for the interests of the strongest member states. Unfortunately, this is extremely unlikely to happen, so states are left asking themselves if the Euro and the EU in general are worthwhile if they’re going to be run in the interests of the powerful states. In many cases the answer is still yes (e.g. Britain) but for some countries an exit is worth considering.
Greece has a lot of structural problems (far more than any of the other peripheral countries that are in trouble), but the immediate crisis is that it has an unemployment rate above 25%, which means the Greek economy is operating far below capacity, which means Greek revenues are lower than they could be. The high unemployment rate is also marginalizing and radicalizing young people and creating a serious threat to the Greek political system. Yes, Greece needs to tackle corruption and other structural problems, but its immediate crisis has two key causes:
1. Greece is having to send significant amounts of money out of the country to pay creditors (e.g. Germany).
2. Greece can’t devalue its currency, so if it wants to bring its labor costs down and regain competitiveness vis-a-vis Germany, it has to deflate its wages, which means a prolonged period of massive unemployment and suffering.
So far, Greece has tried to wait out the deflation. If Greece waits long enough, eventually it will recover, but at great human cost.
Alternatively, Greece could dump the Euro, introduce a new (much weaker) drachma, and default on its debt. This would immediately stop the flow of money out of the country and allow Greece to rapidly adjust its wages against Germany’s. The cost would be tremendous instability with the new drachma, at least in the short-term. Argentina’s default played a similar role, allowing Argentina to stop sending so much money out.
Syriza is trying to find a way to get some of the benefits of Grexit without all of the costs–they’re using the threat of Grexit to get Germany and company to reduce the amount of money Greece has to send out of the country to lighten the austerity load. They’re hoping this will be enough to maintain stability and allow Greece to stay in. It’s not particularly radical, it’s really just an attempt to adjust the economic strategy of the previous government to make it more sensitive to the reality on the ground in Greece. Grexit would be the radical move, and so far Greece is still too afraid of currency instability during the adjustment period.
I am impressed by your knowledge! Most of that went over my head. It was cool to learn a little bit about Donald Trump, someone I never really looked into before.
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Trump seems to be more of a reactionary, which is surprising, as you would think, that someone who builds huge projects would be more of a thinker and planner. I do not get a clear message, that even he knows what he stands for. I do get the impression, that he will not take any responsibility for his mistakes. Hillary also seems to be a close 2nd in that respect. It is easy to see why so many people are not happy with either choice.