It’s amazing how all the smoking guns Democrats come across aren’t really smoking guns at all and this story from the New York Times on Trump’s tax releases seems to be less of a smoking gun and more of a steaming and stinking pile of whatever we call what the NYT usually serves up.
The people don’t seem to really care for the most part. Sure, they talked about it, but it’s not having the effect the left was hoping for.
There are several reasons for this. One is the complicated nature of the story and two is the fact that it doesn’t confirm any of the Democrat’s conspiracy theories, and as my colleague, Nick Arama, pointed out, if you hate the way Trump got away with paying less then get mad at his predecessor:
So, if you have any issue with the way Trump got a refund and then didn’t have to pay more, blame Barack Obama; it was perfectly legal because of the law that he signed. So Democrats really can’t attack Trump for using a law they put in place that he was perfectly entitled to use. Bottom line? I want someone who actually has the business acumen to employ what he can within the law, that’s the guy I want in charge of the economy.
The third reason I think it failed and that no one cares is actually the most interesting and it has everything to do with the way the general public views our tax system.
While Trump didn’t do anything illegal, he definitely gave the Internal Revenue Service the slip and managed to pay far less than anyone in his position usually would, largely thanks to his ability to outsmart the bureaucracy that forces so much money out of the populace every year.
And we’re just sort of good with that.
I don’t know many people who are fans of the IRS. Every April 15, America erupts in absolute disgust at the government agency that is so complicated and cold that if put up against most movie villains, we’d say the villains were less evil. There’s constant talk of the need to either reform it completely so as to make the organization less of a bureaucratic mess or abolish it completely.
Ted Cruz even made abolishing the IRS part of his 2016 platform when he ran for president.
“When it comes to jobs and growth and opportunity, the two most effective levers that the federal government has to facilitate small businesses creating new jobs, are tax reform and regulatory reform,” Cruz said during a Las Vegas campaign stop. “I am campaigning on a flat tax that would allow every American to fill out his or her taxes on a postcard that allow us to abolish the IRS.”
Figuring out why people hate the IRS goes even beyond just taking a highly unfair chunk of their cash. The IRS has been used as a weapon against Americans by people in power for ages. President Franklin Roosevelt used the IRS to harass newspaper publishers who gave him a hard time. The IRS was also used against conservative news sites under the Obama administration.
In fact, the IRS was forced to issue an apology to conservative Americans in particular for targeting them for their ideologies back in 2017.
American’s views on the IRS aren’t exactly pleasant, and when Trump defied them by getting around paying more taxes, a part of every American couldn’t help but shrug and wish we were all so good at managing to get around paying the IRS our money.
They may hate Trump, but even the IRS has been a much larger villain to them for longer than he has. There aren’t many out there that would defend the IRS, as it would be just like defending the dog that bites everyone, including you.
