Tax Policy

My opponent has made several false claims. I will take this round to refute his dishonest arguments and then go back to the countless benefits of the Trump tax plan. I have quoted his points below. "I will point out that his companies have filed bankruptcy 6 times, at least partly because of using excessive debt financing." Trump has an extensive track record of successful businesses. He has created hundreds of companies/products that have succeeded. You have only cherry picked 6 companies that failed. The vast majority of his companies have prospered showing he has the skills to run our economy. "wouldn't it be a great idea to have him making decisions with a higher amount of tax income?" No because what he has learned throughout his business experience is that low taxes can drive growth. This has been proven by economic research. A free market, capitalist approach is the best way to grow the econ. Big gov is inherently wasteful and counterproductive. "According to studies for happiness and GDP, 7 of the top 10 countries ranked by happiness were socialist, while the United States came in at number 14 (2014-2016) and 4 of the top 20 countries, including the #2 country) were socialist. 70% and 20% of those groups." Not sure if there"s a meaningful way to calculate happiness. What we do know is the US has a superior economy, superior technology innovation, better medical research and of course much higher GDP than those socialist nations. Our free market system sets us apart and that"s a good thing. Those successful socialist countries have: 1.Much lower population than the U.S. This is a critical distinction because the more people you have in a country the harder it is to pay for expensive socialist programs 2.Population that tends to commit less crime and have lower single motherhood rates 3.Often got rich from abundant natural resources relative to population size 4.Higher educated workforce, more hard working workforce on average 5.Have virtually zero military spending; require the US to provide them w/ military protection. This frees up their budget to spend on wasteful social programs 6.Are running unsustainably high national debts (take the example of Greece) This is simply an apples to oranges comparison. Furthermore, the USA destroys those nations in technological advancements and entrepreneurship. "If the will of the populace is for more socialist policies, they are free to pursue tax policies to reflect that as we live in a representative democracy." If the will of the people was for socialism they would have voted for Bernie Sanders. The American people overwhelmingly voted for a Republican president, republican senate and republican house. They willingly gave full control of the government to the GOP. Trump said he was going to have huge tax cuts. GOP congress always favored high tax cuts. The people wanted Trump because he would deliver free market, capitalist policies that would spur economic growth - like this policy. People in poverty are counting on this tax policy to pass. "Sure, the top 1% contribute a large % of the taxes, because their income is so much more. I suspect if we could total up all the benefits people get from taxes, we would see that the 1% get a large % of those as well." This is wrong" the rich don"t benefit more from social programs versus the poor. In fact they never collect welfare, medicaid etc. If there was free college the rich would probably send their kids to private colleges. Therefore, the rich definitely don"t receive more benefit from the government versus the poor. They just pay a hugely unfair and disproportionate portion of the taxes. "The 1% are often more capable of exploiting loopholes in the current tax system to avoid paying the same rates that hard working Americans are required to." Trump"s policy doesn"t create loopholes in fact it tends to try to remove them. The plan greatly simplifies the tax code which helps to remove those harmful loopholes. The ultra rich will continue to use loopholes under Bernie Sanders. "Many "charities" are more form than substance. That is, they give only a small % to the actual causes they claim to represent, while at the same time paying large salaries to employees, and creating tax deductions for the 1%. I'm not against charity, certainly not real charity, but these tax increases aren't so large to eliminate contributions." Proof? "the people (taxpayers and their children/grandchildren) receive little to no benefit from the taxes collected." High taxes take money from the rich and let the gov do whatever they want with the money. This leads to very wasteful spending. The federal government is very inefficient because they are not using their own money" they waste other people"s money. The free market is a much better way to benefit society. Jobs, jobs, jobs will really improve the lives of the American people. My Case - Individual Tax Cuts: Now I will give a hypothetical case study about Bernie"s plan for raising the taxes on hardworking Americans. Let"s look at Paul the famous brain surgeon, a member of the top 1%. Paul is extremely successful, saves many, many lives (including young children) and is paid 2 million a year in salary. He is also a savvy investor and makes an additional 2 million from the stock market/real estate. Total Income: 4 million a year. He lives in San Francisco, California. Let"s look at what percentage Paul pays under my opponent"s plan: Income Tax: Since he makes 4 million Paul pays at least 45% for income tax New Healthcare Premium Tax: 2.2% New Family and Medical Tax: 0.4% California State Tax (highest bracket): 12.3% California Mental Health Tax: 1% Fica Tax (Social security, medicare): 12.4% (1). Total: Around 73% The government steals 73%... the vast majority of Paul"s hard earned wealth when he is alive" and up to 65% (estate tax) of his remaining wealth when he is dead" Is it fair for the government to take 73% and later an additional 65% of someone"s hard earned money" after that individual likely contributed greatly to the country through creating many jobs and investment? We have a wonderful word that perfectly describes my opponent"s tax policy: communism. Keep in mind what happens to Paul if he refuses to pay most of his wealth. The government will literally put a gun to his head, handcuff him and lock him away in jail" and then gleefully take his money. It is NOT freedom to have most of your wealth STOLEN by a greedy, greedy government". A government full of gratuitous waste, fraud and abuse" a government where politicians get filthy rich from taxpayer money. One word sums this up: SAD! Let"s look at this from an economic standpoint. Christina Romer was a famous economist that was chosen by President Barack Obama to run the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA). Christina Romer and David Romer (another economist) decided to perform a study about tax increases. Romer writes "an exogenous tax increase of 1 percent of GDP lowers real GDP by roughly 2 to 3 percent. These output effects are highly persistent"(2). She also states that "indeed, the strong response of investment helps to explain why the output consequences of tax changes are so large"(2). As the government raises taxes they cripple the productivity of our workforce. They seek to crush incentives for people to invest. My opponent"s plan will cause irreversible damage to the U.S economy, believe me. I will add more about corporate taxes in future rounds. Sources: [1] https://taxfoundation.org... [2] http://www.nber.org...