{"id":20568,"date":"2017-12-11T23:13:36","date_gmt":"2017-12-12T06:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=20568"},"modified":"2017-12-11T23:13:36","modified_gmt":"2017-12-12T06:13:36","slug":"opinion-dissing-montana-supporters-trumps-4th-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/12\/opinion-dissing-montana-supporters-trumps-4th-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Dissing Montana supporters\u2014Trump’s 4th way"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jobs\"<\/a>

On Capitol Hill, there are many good reasons to worry about the so-called \u201cTax Cuts and Jobs Act.”<\/p><\/div>\n

In the weeks following Donald Trump\u2019s inauguration,\u00a0I enumerated<\/a> the first three ways that the then-new president had disappointed his Montana supporters.<\/p>\n

\"Bruce<\/a>

Bruce Lohof<\/p><\/div>\n

One<\/strong>: Immediately after his inauguration Trump signed an executive order threatening to gut the Affordable Care Act. He promised to replace it with \u201csomething terrific.\u201d The Montana Budget and Policy Center responded quickly: Repealing the Act, it reported, \u201ccould have disastrous impacts on Montana, leading to 142,000 fewer Montanans with health coverage than if health reform were left in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two<\/strong>: Days later Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He promised that withdrawal would be a \u201cgreat thing\u201d for America, but the Billings Gazette quickly cautioned that \u201cmore than 80 percent of Montana\u2019s wheat is sold to TPP nations \u2026 including Japan, which is also a top-five buyer of U.S. beef.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actually, withdrawal from TTP had two additional downsides.\u00a0 It threatened to increase the cost of every flipflop and flat-screen TV purchased in Montana, and it ceded further Pacific Rim trade leadership to the Chinese.<\/p>\n

Three<\/strong>: Then came renewed ridicule of NAFTA and more praise of the wall between Mexico and the United States. Montanans who made a list of what they buy or sell across that border were alarmed: automobiles, machinery, medical instruments, mineral fuels, agricultural products coming north; agricultural products, mostly beef, going south. All of it threatened by the specter of an impaired NAFTA and a rising wall.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the fourth affront approaches. I refer, of course, to the tax proposal that is whirling around the Capitol and toward the White House with indecent speed. Under the moniker \u201cTax Cuts and Jobs Act,\u201d the proposal wants us to pretend that oil (i.e., tax cuts) and water (jobs) do mix. It wants us to believe a trickle-down hoax so hoary and discredited that invoking it is enough to make a sailor \u2014 although, apparently, not a politician \u2014 blush.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>In a recent editorial the New York Times called the bill \u201cA Historic Tax Heist \u2026 in which Republican donors pick your children\u2019s pockets.\u201d Your children\u2019s pockets because the bill will increase the national debt by $1.5 trillion. Republican donors because of the way that the bill skews its rewards.<\/p>\n

In Montana alone, according to the Department of Revenue, the state\u2019s wealthiest taxpayers will receive 50 percent of tax breaks proposed by \u201cTax Cuts and Jobs.\u201d Breaking down the tax breaks:<\/p>\n

\u2666 Each of the state\u2019s wealthiest households: $25,000 a year.<\/p>\n

\u2666 Each household with an income of $20,000-$64,000: $788 a year.<\/p>\n

\u2666 Each household with an income of $20,000 or less: slim to none.<\/p>\n

The average household income in Montana is somewhere south of $48,000. Do the math. Are you an average Montana household that will see a reduction of $788 in your federal taxes while 3.4 percent of your fellow Montanans see a reduction of $25,000? Did you, like 57 percent of Montana\u2019s voters, cast a ballot for Trump? If you are and if you did, please bear it all in mind when the next elections roll \u2019round.<\/p>\n

Bruce A. Lohof is a native of Montana.\u00a0 A former professor and a retired diplomat, he\u00a0<\/em>lives in Vienna and in Red Lodge.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the weeks following Donald Trump\u2019s inauguration,\u00a0I enumerated the first three ways that the then-new president had disappointed his Montana supporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":20570,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3864],"tags":[2853,4726,4885,6543],"class_list":["post-20568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-donald-trump","tag-montana-budget-and-policy-center","tag-nafta","tag-trans-pacific-partnership","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20568"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20571,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20568\/revisions\/20571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}