Why Trump's Ideas Suck

Taxes

The bottom 40% already pay an effective federal rate of 0%.

The nominal tax rate for most of the middle class is already 25% - so no change there.

Only about 15% of earners making $50k or less currently have effective tax rates above 12%.

So those 15% would see some amount of savings under Trump's plan. All told it's an average of less than a 0.5% increase in after tax income for the bottom 80% of filings.

Who definitely gets tax cuts then?

• Make more than $150k? 3% cut.
• Make more than $230k? 8% cut.
• Make more than $411k? 2% cut.
• Make more than $465k? 7% cut.

And of course, the estate tax cut for those families worth more than $10.5M. That'd save the Trump family $4B.

So nothing for the poor, a slice of the middle class gets money, but if you're already doing well you're getting a nice bump in after tax income and a free pass to your well off children.

Speaking of children, his child tax deduction pretty much only helps the wealthy as well... you'll notice a trend here.

Some problems then.

• This increases income inequality.
• Tax cuts to the wealthy are the least effective tax cuts (the lower your income, the more likely you are to spend your tax cuts and put that money directly back into the economy instead of plugging it into the stock market).
• There are no spending offsets to cover the revenue lost in the tax cuts - so he wants to massively increase the deficit.
• Remember: tax cuts do not pay for themselves.

We literally just went through this with the Bush tax cuts and the economic analysis shows: weak improvements to the economy that aren't enough to offset revenue losses resulting in increases in the deficit. If you both understand and give a shit about domestic fiscal policy - this plan is outdated, stupid, and offensive.

This plan would be like a doctor prescribing smoking to fix your throat ailments.

Trade

• Trump's biggest trade plan is to impose tariffs on countries like China and Mexico if they don't play by his rules.He has said that he doesn't mind starting a trade war. He would back us out of trade agreements like NAFTA and WTO (as we would violate those agreements with these tariffs), which would certainly result in massive retaliatory tariffs and might possibly result in war. That is not hyperbole. International trade agreements are seen as a way of preventing world war. You don't shoot your customer.
• So best case scenario we get retaliatory tariffs, which have been aptly described by the Cato Institute as a tax increase, most especially on the poor (as the goods they consume would be more expensive due to import tariffs) as well as on US manufacturers (as the goods they export would be less competitive due to export tariffs).
• To reiterate, retaliatory tariffs from our three largest export destinations - Canada, Mexico, and China - would be devastating for US manufacturers.
• Trump's tariffs on Mexico and China would average a 4% tax increase on all Americans and an 18% increase on the poorest of Americans. That's without accounting for the negative effect of retaliatory tariffs.
• The benefit that Trump is touting is that isolationist trade policy would bring manufacturing jobs back to America, which is a nice idea but there's a couple of issues with his approach. 1) Any country not under the tariffs would become more competitive and would take over the previous cost leader's role in exporting to the US., and 2) reductions in US manufacturing have been largely the result of gains in efficiency, not job loses to low wage countries. So unless Trump plans to tariff every country in the world (an 11% tax increase on Americans) and outlaw robots at home, we're not getting those jobs back.
• The best thing we can say about Trump's trade plan is that he simply cannot complete all of it without Congressional approval. So the less effective Trump is in enacting the plan, the better off for Americans and the world economy. The most efficient way of keeping Trump from enacting his plans is to not elect him at all.
• That's why the US Chamber of Commerce is against Trump, economists from all sides of the spectrum are against Trump, and the heads of these companies are against Trump.

Schools

Briefly: They're largely funded by local property tax - so failing schools directly correlate to failing communities. Help poor communities and you help poor schools. Cutting the Department of Education isn't part of that equation. Some would call it a scapegoat.

Deportation

• Would cost a lot to do. Between about half to two thirds the cost of the entire federal budget in a single year.
• Would cost even more to keep up. More than the annual budget of the Marines and Army combined.
• It would cost our economy in the long run, with a 6% drop in future GDP.
• And it wouldn't likely help raise wages in the short term. In fact it'd likely kill jobs.
• While private sector output would decline by 3-5%.

His policies fucking suck and there's broad bipartisan agreement on that. If you give a shit about the American economy and you do your research, you denounce Trump's economic policies loudly.