COMMENTARY: Tax reform, repealing Obamacare must be Donald Trump’s priority
Here’s my message to President Trump and the GOP Congress: We’re dying out here.
The latest rumors in the media are that the GOP Congress is scared of repealing the Obamacare taxes. And while President Donald Trump has done a fantastic job in his first few weeks — in my opinion, the best start for a conservative president in history — it appears he and his team are tackling corporate income tax cuts first.
That’s not good enough.
The economy is dying. Barack Obama left President Trump with a mess on his hands. A disaster looms — not for corporations, but for individual taxpayers. We now have concrete proof on multiple fronts.
First, the gross domestic product for Obama’s final quarter was a miserable 1.9 percent. Worse, the GDP for Obama’s entire last year was 1.6 percent. Those are tragic recession numbers.
Second, Obama’s own former chief economist and chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers reported last month that 94 percent of the jobs created under Obama were crappy, low-wage, part-time jobs. We are in a ”jobs depression.”
Third, we just got proof that small business is dying: Sixty percent of U.S. metro areas are experiencing small business collapse. In a majority of American cities more businesses close each day than open. This is a disaster for the middle class.
Finally, we just got the worst news of all. For the past half century, every single time U.S. government tax receipts go down, we are either about to fall into painful recession, or we’re already in one. Guess what? U.S. Treasury tax receipts are down over the past 12 months. The last time that happened was July of 2008. Guess what followed? The Great Recession. Obama has left President Trump with a looming economic disaster.
I’m one of those small-business owners who makes up the economic engine of America. I’m at “ground zero.” All of my problems trace to the dramatic income tax increases imposed by Obama; the crushing Obamacare taxes imposed by Obama; and the unimaginable increases in my insurance premiums because of Obama.
In short, the taxes and health insurance are too damn high.
What is the answer? We elected President Trump to cut the damn taxes. Trump has done so many great things in his first few days and weeks. But …
None of them is as important as getting the economy going again, encouraging new business startups, job creation, saving small business and saving the great American middle class.
All of Trump’s early accomplishments pale when compared to cutting income taxes for individuals (which almost all small businesses file under); repealing all of the Obamacare taxes; and killing Obamacare itself.
Those are the three things that destroyed the U.S. economy; that caused GDP to die; that caused all job creation to consist of low-wage, part-time jobs; that caused tax receipts to decline; that caused more businesses to fail each day than open.
President Trump, you must aim all your cannons at those three issues in order for individual taxpayers to turn around the U.S. economy, small business, create quality jobs and make America great again.
Wayne Allyn Root (Wayne@ROOTforAmerica.com) is a best-selling author and host of “WAR Now: The Wayne Allyn Root Show” from 3 to 6 p.m. daily at 790 Talk Now. His R-J columns run Thursdays and Sundays.
