Well the simpler taxes are, the more difficult (though hardly impossible) they are to game. That’s part of the reason that US taxes are so complicated: to fill the law with loopholes for the wealthy and powerful to exploit. The advantages of making capital gains taxable to the extant assets are used as collateral is that it prevents the wealthy from perpetually borrowing against them and paying interest to banks instead of taxes on them. Unlike a wealth tax, it means that the government will not have to challenge the valuation that the wealthy put on assets, something that the IRS does not have the expertise or manpower to do effectively. After all, one of the many court cases that Trump is involved in is a case where he represented real property as worth more to lenders than to the state taxing authority. Seemingly cut and dried, that has been wending its way through the courts for years and I’m betting if other wealthy RE developers were subject to the same scrutiny as Trump we could easily find many examples of the same type of shenanigan. And that is real estate, an asset that the state taxes regularly. and has experience valuing. Imagine if the dispute was over the value of a mix of CDOs and the kind of crazy, poorly traded financial instruments that blew up so spectacularly in 2008. Instead the valuation here would be done by the banks lending the money, which have an incentive to get the valuation right.
It is also more politically palatable than a wealth tax because it doesn’t penalize the almost mythical “family farm” which is worth millions on paper, but doesn’t actually provide income proportional to its value. The fear that the family farm will have to be sold to pay taxes is brought up EVERY time there is a proposal increase inheritance taxes or wealth taxes. Of course the main beneficiaries of of not raising inheritance taxes or the “step up” valuations (which we should also get rid of) are not farms worth a few million but the fortunes of the VERY rich worth 100s of millions or more.
A lot of it came down to not doing his homework, another character trait of von Clownstick. If he had he would have discovered that: it’s not a good idea to pile all your casino executives into the same small aircraft; Native Americans are opening a whole bunch of nice and convenient casinos; the kind of degenerate gambler who goes to Atlantic City doesn’t care about “the most luxurious, really the best, believe me” restaurants and shows and hotel rooms.
Does anybody have a link to data showing the percentages and dollar amounts (in both real and adjusted for inflation dollars) of created federal debt for each Presidency? It has to exist somewhere but I’m too old and lazy to figure out where to find it.
I ask because a 39% increase in federal debt - in one term seems kind of high.
The US treasury has a nice little graph you can read values from. That one gives them adjusted for inflation…and with that, you get that from 2016 to 2021 is only 26%. Of course, what actually counts is not the raw number that is owed but how difficult it is to pay it back, which is measured by debt to GDP. That jumps from 106% to 121%.
I agree, GDP is a better “inflation adjustment” than CPI. The postwar boom is why the WWII debts weren’t crippling for the US as they were for many countries.
Also a reminder: Fox News’ show “Fox & Friends” featured usually weekly call-ins from Donald Trump from 2011 through his campaign, and in 2011 Republicans were playing their first round of economic disaster chicken with the debt default. Trump called in then and urged Congress that they would be foolish if they didn’t let the U.S. default on its debt, unless they got 100% of their demands from Obama. Trump acknowledged that, yes, there would be some suffering, but denying Obama reelection was the important thing:
“Frankly the Republicans would be crazy unless they get 100 percent of the deal that they want right now to make any deal… And he can’t get elected… if this stuff is going on prior to an election, he can’t get elected… When it comes time to default, they’re not going to remember any of the Republicans’ names. They are going to remember in history books one name, and that’s Obama.”
Actual quality and taste are beside the point, since he obviously doesn’t understand those concepts. One of his “special” abilities is spending ruinous amounts of money (mostly others’ but also his own) to stage his attempts at gaudy grifts. As I recall he also overpaid Merv Griffin for the Taj Mahal in the first place.
Like many con artists, he’s a dumb and lazy guy who discovered a motherlode of marks who were even dumber and lazier than him. His narcissism and hunger for attention and starting wealth led him to attract them on a massive scale via the corporate media. This is one of the reasons he’s so obsessed with press coverage, ratings and polls.
We’ve got the same GOP members who’ve been trying to undermine support for Ukraine by saying the US is spending too much now demanding more military spending. Of course, they probably want most of that to be spent here, fighting their culture wars.
They want a return to good, American wars of the Cold War era, against the people of the global south… you know, like Vietnam and selling arms to right wingers in Angola!
Of course, they probably want most of that to be spent here, fighting their culture wars. 
