The Trump tax plan continues to sink as we fall into the last half of 2017 before there is even any legislation over it. According to one report by the Hill titled: "Pessimism abounds on Trump Tax Reform effort," a veteran tax lobbyist doesn't see Trump's tax plan going anywhere. A K Street tax specialist also said that a lack of detail in the plan and a "cluttered agenda" already make its upcoming failure profoundly clear. If one were to look back at the President's "formal" tax reform speech from last week, it's even a proud declaration of how failed that tax plan is.

Optimistic tax plan under bad optics

Donald Trump has publicly accumulated a history of relying on misinformation, distributing it, allowing his aides to peddle alternative facts and simply being vague on the details of everything he doesn't understand. Trump's approach to putting together tax reform is no different. It should be especially suspicious that someone like Donald Trump would try to take on an ambitious tax plan. The President's populous speech about his tax plan should further confirm those suspicions.

One article by Market Watch titled: "Trump’s weak speech won’t sell tax ‘reform’" that breaks down Trump's tax "plan" said that the populist delivery was weak. In the first place, the speech took place after previous speeches that marked the worse moments of Donald Trump's presidency.

One recent speech he made in August was at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona where he taunted lawmakers, slammed the press and trolled the nation with his intention to pardon racist former sheriff Joe Arpaio, which he ended up doing.

No consistency in Trump's rhetoric

Prior to that, he had made another more presidential speech that he read off of a TelePrompTer about new decisions in Afghanistan.

And still, prior to that, he made a combination of statements and TelePrompTer speeches where he blamed both sides for the violence in Charlottesville. In those moments, he switched between being two different people, sometimes enraged. Are the American people supposed to keep up with someone who is as impulsively defiant against what the American people expect?

Are the American people supposed to take anything that he says and respond to it as they would to any other President?

The answer is clearly, no. Trump's tax plan was already a failure from the time it was "unveiled" and recent updates over any legislation with it, only confirms that. The Market Watch article referred to the President's presentation about how "notable" it was that the President approached his speech like one of his rallies. This was one of those cases where the President mixed up his TelePrompTer speech with some ad-libbing. But the article also draws the line saying that the content of the President's speech was unoriginal, mostly wrong and both politically and economically bad.

President uses populism to make empty promises

For one, President Trump's delivery was that of the populism credited to President Reagan for personal tax cuts in 1981. The comparison being that Trump was using the same trickle-down logic to "sell" corporate tax cuts. Reagan-worshiping conservatives are the only ones who dwell on the trickle-down logic, where it's believed that by going easy on the wealthy, with more money, it trickles down to those who have less. The Market Watch article refers to how those corporate tax cuts are already being spent on stock buy backs which the article said has never built a company.

Corporate tax cuts, nothing for the tax payer

The Market Watch article refers to a piece by the New York Times titled: "It’s a Myth That Corporate Tax Cuts Mean More Jobs" where it refers to AT&T spending more on investment than to create more jobs, being that the company enjoyed an effective tax rate of 8 percent between 2008 and 2015.

Even more, there was very little about tax cuts for regular tax payers. Aside from this is the reality that exists outside of the White House.

With Congress returning to Washington on Tuesday, Republicans are already faced with having to do a lot of heavy-lifting for the President on tax reform, the keeping the government open, passing funding for disaster relief after Hurricane Harvey. To add, President Trump, is looking to force Republicans to repeal health care again, which they've already decided to move away from after a series of failed legislation this year.
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