I’m too busy to blog properly tonight, but can someone please explain to me how lowering taxes prevents hurricanes?

Yes, in case you missed it, the top tweet, minus my suggested edits, of course, really was sent out by Donald Trump today. Apparently, what we all saw play out across the Texas and Florida over the past several weeks wasn’t a climate change wake-up call, as many of us had thought, but, instead, a reminder that America desperately needs to lower taxes on the super-wealthy.

Speaking of taxes, did you also happen to see a few days ago that Trump was raving on social media about how America has the highest tax rate in the world? [See his tweet below.] Well, I know this will likely come as a shock to many of you, but he apparently had his facts wrong. In fact, America is actually one of the lowest taxed countries in the so-called ‘developed’ world, well below the likes of England, Canada, France and Japan. In fact, the only advanced nations with lower taxes than the United States are Mexico, Chile and Korea. And that’s out of all 35 nations that make up OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development).

Here’s Trump’s tweet.

Oh, and, for what it worth, Trump has yet to remove the above tweet, even after being told by virtually every economist in the world that it’s not only wrong, but almost the complete inverse of reality.

But, yeah, I guess there are some who, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, still believe him. And there are probably even some who think that, somehow, lowering taxes on the wealthy really will help us fend off these 500-year weather events that we’re now dealing with on a weekly basis, or at least better care for those in communities that have lost everything.

If we truly wanted to deal with the consequences of storms like these, I would think, we would, if anything, be talking about raising taxes right now, so that we could invest more in entities like FEMA. Instead, however, here we are, talking about cutting their budgets, in order to better line the pockets of America’s super-wealthy.

To believe Trump on this is to believe that the Koch brothers and the Mercers, if only they had a few billion dollars more, might be out there right now, aggressively helping those without insurance rebuild after Hurricane Harvey.

Excuse me for bing cynical, but I don’t see that happening. What do I know, though? Maybe these folks really are out there right now, on their private country estates, just praying for a tax break so that they can do more to help those in need. Maybe the Koch brothers already have one of their yachts ready to start cruising around the Florida Keys, looking for survivors of Hurricane Irma, but they’re just waiting on a tax break so that they can afford the gas… I can picture them now, crying, with life preservers in their hands, so desperate to help, but being held back by “big government.”

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7 Comments

  1. Iron Lung
    Posted September 14, 2017 at 4:50 am | Permalink

    In the wake of hurricane devastation, UBI is more important than ever.

  2. Eel
    Posted September 14, 2017 at 7:30 am | Permalink

    Unrelenting Bowel Irrigation?

  3. BrianB
    Posted September 14, 2017 at 9:08 am | Permalink

    The prosperity gospel teaches us that God provides blessings of wealth to those in his favor, and if the government takes even a small portion of it away, he might send more hurricanes as punishment. Only tax-free churches know how God wants to distribute his wealth among the blessed. The government could use it to help bad people who are not in his favor.

  4. M
    Posted September 14, 2017 at 9:50 am | Permalink

    I can picture them happily throwing boxes of bootstraps onto the people of Houston from their private jet.

  5. Lynne
    Posted September 14, 2017 at 12:01 pm | Permalink

    Lowering taxes on the rich helps them have more money for rebuilding after the hurricane. I guess the federally subsidized flood insurance isn’t enough.

    The funny thing is that a Universal Basic Income (UBI) actually would be helpful in the aftermath of natural disasters as often people have employment gaps as businesses are getting back up and running again.

    I hear HRC considered adding a UBI to her platform. She didn’t for good reasons but I have to admit that had I known that she was at all open to the idea, I never would have voted for Sanders in the primary. Thank goodness she is talking about it though. Maybe in a few decades, after we get first universal coverage and then single payer, the electorate will be more open to the idea. Especially if we all keep talking about it, both the positive and negative aspects of it. Clinton has great ideas about how to make it work eventually!

  6. M
    Posted September 14, 2017 at 2:19 pm | Permalink

    Yes, if you were to give companies more money back in taxes, theoretically they could do more to improve their properties, put systems in place to mitigate damage in the future, etc. According to what I’ve heard about the new Republican tax plan, however, it would direct very little money back to small business owners, with most going to the richest of the rich, who, one would assume, already have both insurance, and the financial wherewithal to do such things.

  7. Dan R.
    Posted September 14, 2017 at 4:43 pm | Permalink

    This is not a photo of Arlo.

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