The real lesson in looking at President Trump’s tax returns is that he lost money while he was President. Not only did his businesses lose money–he refused to take a salary. Contrast that with some of our recent Presidents who were middle class when they arrived at the White House and left as millionaires. Or contrast that with Congressmen who arrived in Washington as members of the middle class and left a few years later as millionaires.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Hot Air<\/a> noted the following:<\/p>\n He is already rich. So rich that he donated his salary every year that he was president.<\/strong><\/p>\n All the ridiculous talk of emoluments, schemes to use the office to enrich himself seemed beside the point. Trump loves himself some money and will do ridiculous things to make it, but even if he did use his office to enrich himself he wouldn\u2019t be stupid enough to have it show up on his tax returns.<\/strong><\/p>\n And sure enough, his returns tell us little except that Trump seems to be the only human being on the planet who didn\u2019t get richer while he was president. He lost over a billion dollars of net worth.<\/strong><\/p>\n As with most Trump controversies, it was much ado about nothing. Nothing bad was done by Trump, and while lots of commentators are cherry picking years when Trump paid little in taxes due to business losses, they ignore the fact that over his presidency he paid a million dollars in taxes.<\/strong><\/p>\n Trump never claimed that he liked paying taxes; he even bragged that he did everything he could legally to avoid the practice. As any red-blooded American should. The federal government wastes trillions of dollars and you are an idiot to simply donate to the government what isn\u2019t legally required.<\/strong><\/p>\n The article also notes:<\/p>\n I would be much more interested in seeing the financials of politicians who entered office without much wealth but have grown immensely wealthy during their tenure. By what mechanism, exactly, did they do this on their relatively modest salaries? What about their families, who also often find their fortunes improve during their tenure.<\/strong><\/p>\n The idea that anybody who supports Joe Biden could care about any financial malfeasance by Trump is ludicrous. The Biden family is little more than a circle of grifters using Joe\u2019s political connections to get rich. Bill Clinton entered office a relative pauper and together with Hillary is now worth north of $100 million.<\/strong><\/p>\n That is quite an achievement for a guy who has never worked in business. \u201cPublic service\u201d has been very good to the Clintons, I would say.<\/strong><\/p>\n The article comes to the only really logical conclusion:<\/p>\n Not every grifter is a Leftist\u2013there are plenty to go around\u2013but nearly every Leftist is a grifter.<\/strong><\/p>\n Still, I am not that interested in seeing their tax returns. I am sure their accountants are as good at manipulating numbers as well as Trump\u2019s. What I would really like to see is somebody doing a correlation between the investments of politicians and the legislation they write and have access to.<\/strong><\/p>\n That would be a great project for a forensic accountant.<\/strong><\/p>\n The correlation between investments and legislation would be fascinating I am sure!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The real lesson in looking at President Trump’s tax returns is that he lost money while he was President. Not only did his businesses lose money–he refused to take a salary. Contrast that with some of our recent Presidents who … Continue reading