Something extremely unusual is happening in America right smack in the middle of this presidential election.
It’s something shocking, surprising, rare, and almost unheard of in recent memory. Suddenly, people are actually talking about policy!
Tax policy, to be exact, and it’s a refreshing change from the so-called “campaign coverage” we’ve become used to in America, which is really just unsubstantiated gossip, personal attacks, updates on bogus court cases, and “reporting” on poll numbers as if that’s actually all it takes to be a political journalist today.
What isn’t surprising is that this discussion about policy has thrived on social media over the last few days, and it’s all thanks to President Donald Trump.
It all started when Trump announced that if he is re-elected, a new Trump administration would eliminate all federal income taxes on tip income for service workers in America—a brilliant proposal to help working Americans keep more of what they earn.
You probably didn’t hear much coverage of this plan in the corporate news media, but it has gained traction on social media. At a Detroit rally, Trump told the audience that Kid Rock introduced him to the idea of writing “Vote Trump, No Taxes on Tips” on receipts.
But this isn’t just a smart campaign strategy. It’s also one of the most effective ways to restart the conversation in America about how destructive and terrible socialism is!
Remember Margaret Thatcher’s quote, “The problem with socialism is that eventually run out of other people’s money.”
But it turns out Thatcher was only half right. The other really lousy thing about socialism is that it claims to support working people until they actually want to keep more of what they earn—when that happens, they become the enemy.
But they get away with this by pretending they’re going to help the middle class by going after the rich—and make them pay their mythical “fair share.”
They pretend that wealth and jobs for the middle class are also created by the middle class.
President Obama promoted this fallacy during the 2012 campaign with his “bottom-up” idea.
That very comment is precisely why socialists and Democrats can never actually deliver relief and upward mobility to the middle class or anyone else. They really don’t get it—and if they do, they don’t actually care.
First off, they don’t understand that it is the wealthy who create almost all the jobs and opportunities in this country. Do you know any business owners with many employees who are poor or even middle class?
Secondly, Socialists and Democrats only know how to raise taxes and try to redistribute other people’s money. They don’t know how to create new wealth or real jobs because that would mean cutting taxes and dumping regulations—which would send them into anaphylactic shock.
It’s all about the politics of resentment and anger. And resentment and anger are economic killers everywhere you look. But that doesn’t mean you can’t grow an economy by targeting the middle class with better tax policy.
President Trump isn’t just talking about doing that in the future. He already did it with his 2017 tax reform, which doubled the standard deduction for tens of millions of Americans who don’t itemize their taxes.
That was a tax policy directed squarely at mostly blue-collar, middle, and lower-middle-class Americans, just the kind of folks Democrats pretend to care about when they’re really working at the beck and call of rich Hollywood and Manhattan types. The same types who have all the accountants and lawyers they’ll ever need to avoid whatever new socialist tax schemes the Democrats spring on us.
The annoying thing is that Trump’s standard deduction increase is rarely mentioned by anyone, and that includes MAGA people and MSDNC people alike!
Imagine that the first “trickle up” tax policy that ever worked in America was all because it was an anti-socialist effort to let working people keep more of their money instead of the government taking more of the people’s money and pretending it was just hitting the “rich.”
This new plan to let tip workers keep those tips federal tax-free is cut from the very same cloth as the standard deduction increase. Honest economists say that the 2017 change was a big reason for the economic boom of the Trump years.
Who knows what eliminating taxes on tips will do for those tip workers, the restaurant and hospitality industry, and all the cities and towns that rely on them? I would think the sky’s the limit.
But here’s a 100 percent guaranteed prediction: the same people who cheered the unconstitutional Biden student loan forgiveness programs will either not say a word about this Trump tip proposal or even attack it.
They’ll hypocritically accuse Trump of trying to “buy votes” with the plan, especially in the swing state of Nevada.
The thing is, you can’t buy people’s votes with their own money!
You see, Joe Biden is trying to buy votes by using your money to pay for the voters’ debts. He’s also bailing out all those price-gouging colleges and enabling them to jack up tuition forevermore in one fell swoop.
Isn’t it funny how people like Obama and Biden are all about attacking the supposedly price-gouging oil and drug companies, but they never have a harsh word to say about the universities that have been blowing up the cost of higher education by a factor much greater for six decades?
It helps that well over 90 percent of America’s college administrators and professors vote Democrat, election after election.
That’s why President Biden never mentions anyone he thinks may be responsible for all that debt when he announces his illegal student loan forgiveness plans. Suddenly, the socialist resentment and hate just fade away.
Come on, Joe, tell us who has made that debt unsustainable. Why is the system broken? Suddenly, the demonizer-in-chief isn’t interested.
But Democrats and socialists will tell you that it’s a “trickle-up” policy to impose a student loan relief program that steals from one set of taxpayers of all income levels and gives it to others!
That includes taking money from poor taxpayers and giving it to rich Americans simply because they have accrued loan debts!
Don’t whitewash all this with the old cliche that socialism is a nice sentiment, but it’s hard to implement. That’s not the reality. Socialism is not a good idea. It has never lifted people out of poverty in a sustainable way. It’s a failed idea and also a failed system with a perfect record of failing 100% of the time!
Only capitalism works to make sure those who do productive work can keep and grow their earnings. All the “best intentions” in the world will never make two plus two equal five. However, a good capitalist system with orderly investment markets can make two plus two equal an infinite amount of money if those investments are allowed to grow over time.
To put it another way, President Trump’s tax-free tip plan isn’t “robbing Peter to pay Paul;” it’s encouraging Peter to work harder and get and keep more of the money Paul is paying and tipping him. It’s as simple as that.
And the simple logic of all of this is probably terrifying any Democrat-socialist smart enough to see this plan for what it is.
It’s a clear-cut way to truly help working people without any of the heavy lifting needed to demonize the rich, make up phony promises, or defy mathematics.
And now, those Democrats and socialists are trapped into simply hoping this plan is ignored. That’s where you come in: take Kid Rock’s suggestion to heart and make those notes on your restaurant check receipts.
You won’t be working on a presidential campaign; you’ll be working for a better and richer America.