Yes…his priorities couldn’t be clearer here…keep wealthy’s wealth up in the stratosphere.
“You all just got a lot richer,” Trump told them, no doubt to an enthusiastic reaction. Affording Mar-a-Lago’s six-figure initiation fee and $14,000-a-year membership just got a bit easier.
That casual aside from Trump was the flip side to his excoriation of Charles and David Koch on Tuesday. After the Kochs announced that they wouldn’t support Sen. Heidi Heitkamp’s (D-N.D.) challenger for the time being, Trump lashed out through his primary spokesman, @realDonaldTrump.
“The globalist Koch Brothers, who have become a total joke in real Republican circles, are against Strong Borders and Powerful Trade. I never sought their support because I don’t need their money or bad ideas. They love my Tax & Regulation Cuts, Judicial picks & more,” Trump wrote.
“I made them richer,” he continued. “Their network is highly overrated, I have beaten them at every turn. They want to protect their companies outside the U.S. from being taxed, I’m for America First & the American Worker — a puppet for no one. Two nice guys with bad ideas. Make America Great Again!”
There’s a lot going on there, as there often is. But Trump’s pitch is twofold: I have conservative judicial picks, and I cut their taxes and made them richer. How on earth could the Kochs take issue with Trump when he made them richer? It defies understanding.
The tax cuts were pitched as “rocket fuel” for the economy, spiking job creation and wage growth. Neither has happened. Real earnings — wage increases relative to inflation — are flat over the past year. Job growth is squarely in line with where it had been for months. Trump’s frequent assertions that people would have scoffed during the campaign had he announced that we’d hit the number of jobs that have been added under his presidency is false. We’re right where the existing trend suggested we’d be. The tax cuts haven’t had any noticeable effect on two keys elements of their sales pitch.