I Doubt The Tax Returns Will Lose Him Any Votes, But They May Send Him To Prison-- And Wouldn't You Prefer That Anyway?

 

Lawless Zone by Nancy Ohanian

Will the NY Times blockbuster from Sunday night matter election-wise. It will matter to some people, but those people have by and large already decided they're not voting for Trump. Maybe there are some Republican businessmen and women who dutifully pay their taxes and will resent Trump enough to sit out election day-- though I wouldn't bet on that being too many. At best the stories that will emanate from him being a tax swindler will knock Trump off his game and keep him rattled and on the defensive.

In his Bloomberg News oped yesterday, Trump's Taxes Show He's a National Security Threat, Timothy O'Brien raised something more important that how Trump's base will react. "What trade-offs," he asked, "would a president with this level of indebtedness be willing to make to save face? And few people know as much about the tax-swindling nature of Donald than O'Brien who had tangled with him in and out of court for years. "Step away from the tragicomic tawdriness and grift that the tax returns define," wrote O'Brien, "however, and focus on what they reveal about Trump as the most powerful man in the world and occupant of the Oval Office. Due to his indebtedness, his reliance on income from overseas and his refusal to authentically distance himself from his hodgepodge of business, Trump represents a profound national security threat-- a threat that will only escalate if he’s re-elected. The tax returns also show the extent to which Trump has repeatedly betrayed the interests of many of the average Americans who elected him and remain his most loyal supporters."

According to The Times, Trump has about $421 million in debts which he has personally guaranteed and which are coming due over the next several years. This is consistent with earlier reporting about how much debt he carries, a chunk of which could be gleaned from the personal financial disclosures he is required to file with the federal government. But Trump’s overall indebtedness is greater than the Times tally, I believe.

...Dan Alexander, a senior editor at Forbes, has been covering Trump’s business interests since 2016 and has a new book out about the president’s financial conflicts of interest, White House Inc. Alexander, in a helpful tally he shared Sunday evening, estimates Trump’s total indebtedness to be about $1.1 billion...

Trump has been bloviating about being worth $10 billion ever since he entered the 2016 presidential race, a figure that simply isn’t true. He’s worth a fraction of that amount, and the larger his indebtedness becomes, the more strain it puts on his assets. The Covid-19 pandemic has taken a particularly brutal toll on the sectors in which the Trump Organization operates-- real estate, travel and leisure. If Trump is unable to meet his debt payments, he’s either going to have to sell assets or get bailed out by a friend with funds. Trump has never liked to sell anything, even when it’s hemorrhaging money. So if he’s tempted to save himself by getting a handout, that makes him a mark.

...If Vladimir Putin, for example, can backchannel a loan or a handout to the president, how hard is Trump going to be on Russia? Not that we should worry about Trump’s relationship with Putin. That’s just a hypothetical question.

And then there's Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the Emirates, Israel, China, Brazil, the Philippines... and number of countries run by unscrupulous politicians who Trump would be more than willing to take bribes from. Will it change votes? Nah, but, hey, how bad to you want to see that slob rotting in prison?





Yesterday, Morris Pearl, the Chair of the Patriotic Millionaires and a former managing director of BlackRock, Inc. wrote that "It seems obvious that Trump has committed some amount of criminal tax evasion, but that's not the biggest issue here. The real problem is a system that provides such absurd loopholes to the ultra-wealthy in the first place, and a deliberately underfunded IRS that lacks the capacity to properly prosecute rich people's criminal tax evasion. Trump's case may be particularly egregious, but he's far from unique. This is just evidence of the rot in our tax system, which is designed to allow rich people to avoid paying their fair share. This has been the case for decades, but the tax code is even more skewed in favor of the rich and powerful after Trump was able to rewrite the entire tax code to his liking in 2017 with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The American people should be angry about President Trump's tax evasion, but that's not all. They should be much more angry about how much of what Trump did is legal. The American people should be more angry about how many other millionaires and billionaires are able to avoid supporting the country that made them rich in the first place. Most of all, the American people should be pissed off about the fact that instead of offering them health care, or affordable childcare, or financial support during a pandemic, their government instead prioritizes protecting the wealth of the rich, powerful, and selfish."


This morning, Ted Lieu (D-CA), co-chair of the of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, reminded me that "When Trump announced that he was running for President he said he would run the government like a business. Unfortunately, he meant a Trump business. Now we know why he was so intent on not releasing his tax returns. It has now come to light that Trump has grossly mismanaged his business and personal finances the same way he has mismanaged our government. He has also paid virtually no federal income tax over the past 15 years, which makes it extra rich when he insults hard working immigrants-- many of whom have contributed far more to this country than Trump ever will. But perhaps the most important aspect of this is the implications for our national security. Trump's massive debt makes him a security liability. Who exactly does he owe more than $400 million to?"