Happy Monday! This week we exit September and enter the final quarter of 2020, starting with October.
Speaking of October, it looks like the New York Times has delivered a “bombshell” about president Trump’s tax returns with a 10,000-word story. While I haven’t read the story (I don’t subscribe), it’s clear that someone with access to Trump’s tax returns provided them without permission. According to a CNN report, “The New York Times said it will not make Trump’s tax-return data public so as not to jeopardize its sources ‘who have taken enormous personal risks to help inform the public.'”
Here’s a question: why do presidential election norms include candidates providing tax returns? Can someone research how that became a thing? And why did the NYT “sources” feel like they had to take such “enormous personal risks” to “help inform the public,” which means the entire world?
Now everybody knows that Trump has problems most businesses deal with, like “struggling properties, vast write-offs, [and] an audit battle.” The numbers are huge, of course (an ongoing dispute with the IRS over a nearly $73 million refund), except for what is reported to be a measly $750 tax bill Trump paid in both 2016 and 2017.
What I haven’t yet heard confirmed is whether anything he did to avoid paying taxes was illegal. That would not be good news. Not that this exposé by the NYT is “good” news, but if he took advantage of existing loopholes to avoid paying taxes, color me disinterested.
Everybody and their brother tries to find ways to reduce their tax liability, including me. Do you think the confiscatory tax rates levied by our local, state and federal governments are fair? Don’t you wish you could keep more of your money? That’s true of everyone, no matter how much money is involved.
I’m not cutting Trump a break here. If he did something illegal to avoid making tax payments he otherwise owed, then he needs to face the consequences. But the report doesn’t reveal any connections to Russia! as long alleged by the Left, nor does it imply wrong-doing. In fact, Raheem Kassam, editor-in-chief of the National Pulse and former senior advisor to Brexit leader Nigel Farage, seems to think it’s a big nothing burger.
The immediate consequence, if there is one, is how the revelation affects his reelection chances. I don’t think Trump loses his die-hard supporters, i.e. those who have supported him since the 2016 campaign. Late-comers like me, who needed some convincing to support him, might be disappointed, but stay the course through the election. We take one look at the seething, roiling dumpster fire that is the Democrat party and say, “to whom else shall we go?”
NeverTrumpers and progressive Democrats (a distinction without a difference) were never voting for Trump, so they’re irrelevant. The biggest risk are Independents and the Undecideds. Will the results of Trump’s economic policies that are good for everybody outweigh any indiscretions on the tax returns? Or will they punish him for being a perceived hypocrite?
With a Supreme Court nomination in the Senate, at least one or two debates with Joe Biden, and a continued economic recovery, I think the tax return story fades into obscurity. The real story should be that someone illegally gave Trump’s returns to the New York Times.
[Image: nytimes.com screengrab]
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A Personal Note
I write five days a week on personal time because it’s one way I can contribute to strengthening the resolve of Christians, conservatives and other like-minded compatriots in the face of unprecedented division in our country. I would like to eventually do more. If you like what you’re reading and think others would benefit from it, please consider regularly sharing and commenting on my posts. Also invite your friends to subscribe. They can do that right on the home page. Thanks for reading! — Dave