Donald Trump in Vox Media
On Budget & Economy:
1999: one-time wealth tax on top 1% to reduce national debt
Sen. Elizabeth Warren wasn't the first major American politician to put the idea of a tax on large fortunes on the political agenda. Indeed, it's been kicking around in one form or another since the late 1990s, when an influential then-independent
rolled out a proposal that he framed as a way to reduce the national debt while preserving the interests of the 99%.Here's how the plan's architect described it: "By my calculations, 1 percent of Americans, who control 90% of the wealth in this
country, would be affected by my plan. The other 99% of the people would get deep reductions in their federal income taxes."
His name? Donald Trump.
Trump's idea was that paying off the national debt would reduce federal interest rate costs,
allowing for a middle-class tax cut. Instead, the debt volume has increased dramatically since 1999, but federal debt service payments as a share of GDP are actually lower than they were back then, since interest rates have fallen dramatically.
Source: Vox.com analysis of 2019 Trump Administration
Jan 31, 2019
On Energy & Oil:
End war on coal: it's important for our defense
We have ended the war on American energy, we were in war. And we have ended the war on beautiful, clean, coal, one of our great natural resources. Very important for our defense, coal, very important for our defense, because we have it. We don't have to
send it through pipes, we don't have to get it from foreign countries. We have more than anybody. And they wanted to end it, and our miners have been mistreated and are not being mistreated anymore. We're doing tremendous business.
Source: Vox.com blog, "Trump at CPAC 2018"
Feb 23, 2018
On Foreign Policy:
Treat foes of US worse than they could ever imagine
We declined to certify the terrible one-sided Iran nuclear deal. It was a horrible deal. Whoever heard you give $150 billion to a nation that has no respect for you whatsoever? They're saying death to America. If somebody said death to America, while
I'm signing an agreement, I say what's going on, folks? I'm not signing. People that treat us well, we treat them well. People that treat us badly, we treat them much worse than they could ever imagine. That's the way it has to be.
Source: Vox.com blog, "Trump at CPAC 2018"
Feb 23, 2018
On Gun Control:
Teachers with gun training should be allowed to carry
When we declare our schools to be gun-free zones, it just puts our students in far more danger. Well trained, gun adept teachers and coaches and people that work in those buildings, people that were in the Marines for 20 years, and retired, people in
the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Coast Guard, people that are adept with guns, they teach. I don't want to have 100 guards standing with rifles all over the school. You do a conceal carry permit. And this would be a major deterrent.
Source: Vox.com blog, "Trump at CPAC 2018"
Feb 23, 2018
On Immigration:
Cut off aid $700M to Central American Northern Triangle
After months of threats, President Donald Trump has officially taken steps to cut off aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador--the three countries in the "Northern Triangle" of Central America that are the origin point for the current
unprecedented wave of family migration to the United States. The State Department acknowledged in a statement that it had notified Congress it was cutting off aid from past years (fiscal years 2017 and 2018) to the three countries.
An estimated $700 million in aid will be affected by the cutoff.It's still not clear exactly how the aid cutoff is going to work. According to the Washington Post, embassy officials didn't know whether the cutoff applied only to money
that hadn't yet been designated for particular contracts with nongovernmental organizations or whether they were actually supposed to cancel existing contracts that had already been signed and implemented.
Source: Dara Lind, Vox.com, on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Apr 1, 2019
On Tax Reform:
Comparison of Warren wealth tax to Trump wealth tax
Sen. Elizabeth Warren wasn't the first major American politician to put the idea of a tax on large fortunes. Trump's plan, as articulated during a 1999 flirtation with a Reform Party presidential bid, differed from Warren's in three important respects:
- He wanted the tax to be a one-time levy that would reduce the national debt and therefore reduce interest service payments. Warren's plan would simply levy a smaller tax each year.
- He wanted a fairly hefty rate--14.5%--that would have
required a lot of rapid-fire liquidation of business assets. Warren's rate structure is much lower than that.
- He set the threshold for his tax lower. While Warren wants to tax fortunes worth more than $50 million, Trump proposed taxing wealth
starting at $10 million. This was in 1999; in inflation-adjusted dollars, that's $15 million.
By setting a high one-time tax rate, Trump created enormous avoidance incentives and never came up with a plan to deal with them.
Source: Vox.com analysis of 2019 Trump Administration
Jan 31, 2019
On Tax Reform:
People want tax cuts; don't understand tax reform
We passed the biggest tax cuts in the history of our country and it was called tax cut and reform. And I said to our people, "don't use the word reform."
Because we're going to go with "the tax reform act." I said "no wonder for 45 years nothing has been passed. Because people want tax cuts.
And they don't know what reform means." Reform can mean you're going to pay more tax. And now it was called "the tax cut act and jobs," we had to add
jobs into it, because we're picking up a tremendous number of jobs. 2.7 million jobs. 2.7. So now people hear tax cuts, and it has been popular.
Source: Vox.com blog, "Trump at CPAC 2018"
Feb 23, 2018
On War & Peace:
To eradicate ISIS, we need action, not talk
Trump and Pope Francis have made no effort to hide their shared enmity over the past few years. During the presidential campaign, the Pope--who is revered for his deep humility and sincere affinity for the poor and downtrodden--was cutting about Trump's
plan to build a border wall with Mexico. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel," Francis said in February 2016.Trump fired back via Facebook: "If and
when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS's ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened.
ISIS would have been eradicated unlike what is happening now with our all talk, no action politicians."
Trump added, huffily, "No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man's religion or faith."
Source: Vox.com on 2020 Presidential Hopefuls, "Trump-Pope Meeting"
May 24, 2017
On Welfare & Poverty:
Rebuild our black inner cities, which are so sad
Trump put forward a particular vision of America after he won the California primary: "We're going to rebuild our inner cities, which are absolutely a shame and so sad. We're going to take care of our African-American people that have been mistreated
for so long. We're going to make you and your family safe, secure, and prosperous again. Together, we will put the American people first again."Trump's rhetoric about black Americans has been shaped by conservative views about what black America is
like and what its people want. They've been predicated on the idea that there are hard-working black people who are being held back by the cultural pathology of their inner-city surroundings.
This is a vision of the African-American community that's
been common in both white and black conservative politics for decades. It's the vision that brought some African-American leaders to support the war on drugs. It's the vision of "respectability politics" proponents from Ben Carson to Bill Cosby.
Source: Timothy A. Clary on Vox.com, Donald Trump's Black Outreach
Sep 17, 2016
Page last updated: Dec 02, 2023