Wednesday, December 13, 2017

A 'Libertarians for Trump' Member Confesses to What is Happening to Him



On Monday at Circle Rothbard-San Francisco, a member confessed that he had been a supporter of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.

He is not so happy these days. It is Ronald Reagan all over for him.

Yes, he was a supporter of Ronald Reagan and under Reagan's tax reform he lost his business. He sold real estate partnerships, which at the time had very significant tax advantages. Reagan reform eliminated them.

(As a side note, when the Reagan tax reform was being put together, I had a personal discussion with Murray Rothbard about the elimination of the tax breaks for real estate partnerships. We both held the view that it was horrific and that the reform was mostly a shell game, just moving the points of taxation around.)

As far as Trump, the Circle member confessed he was disappointed in some of Trump's foreign policy moves but here is the real kicker: tax reform is going to bite him again, He calculates that under the new tax plan his taxes will go up by $4,000 a year.

You are never going to win supporting tax reform candidates. As Laurence Vance has put it:
 [T]ax increases of any kind or amount, tax reform that is revenue neutral, tax base broadening, tax replacement of one tax with another, and tax shifting from one group of taxpayers to another are not libertarian while tax decreases, tax rate reductions, tax deduction income phrase-out increases or eliminations, tax bracket expansions, and new or increased tax deductions, exemptions, credits, exclusions, loopholes, and shelters are libertarian. 
A candidate should be supported on taxes only if he is calling for cuts via tax rates and structure changes, rather than monkeying around with the structure to benefit crony friends and squeeze others which is certainly what Trump is doing.

-RW

1 comment:

  1. A conservative who wants a tax cut wouldn’t have called himself a libertarian over 20 years ago.

    ReplyDelete