The uninformed voters who watched Donald Trump’s 60 Minutes interview are certainly pumping their fists and embracing the things they heard. Like the high school student council presidential candidate, he’s promising to put soda pop in the water fountains and to eliminate homework on weekends.
It cannot work. None of it. I went in with a relatively open mind begging the GOP frontrunner to say something that would convince me he knows what he’s doing. I left with a terror that is actually higher than the first time I heard President Barack Obama’s plans. At least with Obama he acknowledged that the only way to make the math work was to raise taxes. Trump wants to increase spending even more than Obama AND he wants to do so after lowering taxes for almost everyone.
His positions in a nutshell:
- Military: Make is “so strong, so powerful, so modern” by giving them the best technology in the world. Then, he wants to wipe out ISIS in Iraq. Those propositions alone would increase spending by hundreds of billions at the least.
- Immigration: Build a wall. A cheap wall. That’s impenetrable. Then, deport people. Sounds good even if we acknowledge that a “cheap” wall and an “impenetrable” wall are two different things. However, it must be paid for somehow.
- Infrastructure: The roads, grids, bridges, dams, and other infrastructure components are desperately in need of modernization and repair. I agree. Again, it must be paid for. What many don’t realize is that to truly fix infrastructure to the degree that Trump is promising won’t cost millions. It might not even cost billions. The fix that he describes could cost over a trillion dollars and take just shy of two decades.
- Healthcare: Repeal Obamacare. We agree. Then, he wants to work with hospitals to get everyone healthcare. Who will pay for it, he was asked? The government. Wait… umm… seriously? Isn’t that… wouldn’t that be the same… aren’t we then talking about socialized medicine that would cost hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars per year?
- Taxes: Okay, so everything at this point in his positions seem very liberal, which means that he’ll have to raise taxes, even if only on a temporary basis. These promises are extremely expensive, more expensive than anything that has been proposed since before the Vietnam War. That’s fine. We disagree with raising taxes but as long as we know the plan we can look at everything piece by piece and allow Congress to control the spending and declare what can be spent. At this point in the interview, reality fell into an alternate universe. He’s going to lower taxes. In fact, he’s going to allow many to not pay taxes at all. Then, he’s going to raise taxes for those who can afford it like dirty hedge fund managers. In essence, what he described is socialism but without a grain of mathematical sanity worked into the mix.
What Donald Trump has proposed is utterly and indisputably impossible. When asked how he’s planning on making the math work, he says he’s going to bring break free trade agreements and impose tariffs to force companies to hire American workers. Again, that’s not possible. He says he’s going to renegotiate these agreements because he’s the ultimate deal maker. Unfortunately, he cannot. Not only does he not have the power, but he would do tremendous harm to the credibility of the nation if he arbitrarily ignores the agreements that the country has made.
The only saving grace is that he’s incapable of doing what he says he’s going to do. He doesn’t have the ingenious loopholes that the current President has used to circumvent the laws because what he’s describing requires Congressional approval. In essence, his plan is to propose things that cannot happen mathematically and then blame Congress for not giving him money that isn’t there.
There should no longer be a fear of Donald Trump becoming President. His proposals are contradictions of themselves and this will be made apparent before the general election. Unfortunately, if the Republican voters don’t realize this in time, then we’re destined to nominate a candidate who is incapable of winning. Considering how fiscally liberal his perspectives are, it would be better to have a Democrat in the White House again rather than an illusionist like Trump.
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