Trump’s Hostility to Obamacare Is Emblematic of His Psychopathy

   From everything I’ve read and seen, Donald Trump is a profoundly insecure person, and it’s most evident in his antipathy to everything identified with his predecessor, Barack Obama.

We all saw it on day one, when he couldn’t abide the fact that Obama’s inauguration had drawn a bigger crowd than his own. That was when Kellyanne Conway introduced us to the concept of “alternative facts.”

Since that day he has been focusing single-mindedly on reversing or voiding everything with Obama’s stamp on it, and the Affordable Care Act, because of its more common identification as Obamacare, is at the top of his hit list.

What proves my point is the claim that he wants to repeal and replace it with the same provisions, notably protection against pre-existing conditions. He can’t be satisfied with amending the law, which would be far more practical than kicking millions of people off of Obamacare with only a vague promise of replacing it at some future date with a law that has the same provision.

It has been demonstrated in multiple ways by multiple former insiders that Donald Trump is only interested in himself. He’d be a pro-choice Democrat (as he was before) if that provided a path to power, but the path which opened for him was to be a pro-life Republican. He doesn’t actually care about this or any issue.

He thought he should get the Nobel Peace Prize because of his meeting with Kim Jung Un. Clearly it bothers him that Obama won that prize during his first term.

Trump had to replace NAFTA because Obama created it. Again, he couldn’t amend it, he had to replace it with the USMCA, which is only a minor tweaking of NAFTA.

He had to withdraw from the Paris Accord on Climate Change because it was Obama’s, despite the fact that virtually every other country in the world joined it, thanks to Obama's diplomacy on the topic. It goes deeper than that, however. He is a climate change denier only because Obama accepted climate change and was working to address it.  Again, he doesn't actually care about the issue.

Indeed, the failure of this president to marshal the federal government in addressing climate change will be one of his many terrible legacies which a Biden administration will need to deal with. With all the evidence of having passed the “tipping point” on climate change, it’s going to be hard. It could well be impossible after four more years of Donald Trump as president ignoring the issue.

Trump had to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal because it was Obama’s deal. One of the biggest lies that he and his sycophants like to repeat is that Obama sent a plane-load of money to Iran to secure the deal, even though it was Iran’s own assets that had been seized and were now being released to them as part of the deal. Yes, it was dollars and was in cash, but it was Iran’s dollars.

The lies and deception put forth by Donald Trump and echoed by his supporters are astounding, but thankfully they don’t appear to be working, since Biden’s lead in the polls keeps widening. As the election approaches, the lies and distortions will probably get worse and Biden’s lead will hopefully increase as a result.

Can Americans really be fooled into thinking that Obama’s former vice president is going to foment a communist takeover of America? And forget about white supremacists — Trump won’t even disavow Qanon, with its theory that the leaders of the Democratic Party and Hollywood celebrities are a Satan-worshipping cabal engaged in child sex trafficking and drinking the blood of babies. No wonder the president is finally losing credibility except among his base who so love his racist attitudes and policies that they will accept things in him that they wouldn’t ever accept in any other human being.

Trump’s desperation, I believe, is rooted in his fear of prosecution once he is out of office.  I predict that once he finally accepts that he has lost re-election and his 2nd Amendment followers haven't created a coup, he will resign so President Pence can pre-emptively pardon him, although that would only protect him from federal, not state, prosecution. He knows that New York, among other jurisdictions, is waiting to indict him. 

How Will Trump’s Election Impact the Real Estate Market & Industry?

Last week, before I knew the election results, I speculated on how supporters of the losing presidential candidate would act.  Now that we know who will be our 45th President, let’s look at how the real estate market and the industry itself might be affected.

Suffice it to say that Donald Trump’s campaign was not rich in specific and unchanging policy positions. The promises he made were spoken to activate his base, and we are already seeing him back off from the more extreme statements that brought his rally-goers to their feet.

I don’t believe Trump’s election will be nearly as disruptive as one might have expected from his campaign rhetoric. I see his bombast as an act which did not completely reflect his personal positions. I suspect that six months from now those who voted for him will be nearly as upset as those who voted against him.

 

He won’t appoint a special prosecutor to investigate “crooked Hillary.” He won’t build a great wall along the Mexican border. He won’t try to deport millions of undocumented Mexicans, just those who are convicted of crimes (as Obama has been doing). He won’t ban Muslims from entering the country. He won’t repeal Obamacare but rather modify it (as Hillary Clinton said she’d do). And sorry, coal miners, Trump can’t do anything to change the market forces that are killing your industry. Your jobs aren’t coming back.

 

As for renewable energy, it has, thanks to past support, reached the tipping point where it is cheaper than fossil fuels, so the loss of federal tax credits, if enacted, will do little to slow its growth and the decline of oil and gas.  Ditto for electric vs. gas-powered cars.

 

My prediction that Trump will break many of his promises is based in part on his record as a long-time Democrat who had praised (and funded) Hillary Clinton as a U.S. Senator from New York, and who previously, for example, supported abortion rights. As I see it, he wanted to be elected President, and running as a Republican appealing to the “silent majority” was the only path he saw. Now that he has won election, he will moderate his views to more closely match his longtime less conservative views. Trump’s Republican opponents voiced this possibility during the primaries.

 

This is not to say that he won’t take actions that will deeply upset Democrats. He will appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court which could lead to overturning Roe v. Wade.  But, as he said on 60 Minutes, abortion would simply become a state-level issue, and women wanting an abortion might have to travel to get one — not what I’d call a hard-core anti-abortion position.  I bet the right-to-life folks didn’t like hearing that!

 

As for his impact on real estate, keep in mind that he’s a real estate mogul. I don’t think the real estate community has a lot to worry about.  He will not move to eliminate the mortgage interest deduction. We can expect some deregulation, including reversal of many Dodd-Frank provisions which made borrowing harder. Developers will have a friend in the White House.

 

The real estate industry and the real estate market will be just fine under President Trump. Interest rates will continue their slow rise, just as they would have done under Clinton. The gun industry will probably suffer far more, as people stop stocking up on assault weapons in anticipation of an anti-gun president.

 

The biggest challenge I see America facing is de-energizing the “alt right” population — white supremacists, anti-Muslim folks, and other haters — who were emboldened by Trump’s election based on his rhetoric. Simply saying “Stop it” to such persons on 60 Minutes is not going to be enough, but hopefully Trump will realize that and speak more powerfully to those forces before they get too far out of control.

 

In conclusion, I’m less afraid of President Trump than I was of candidate Trump, and, like Obama and other Democratic leaders, am cautiously optimistic.

Published Nov. 17, 2016, in the YourHub section of the Denver Post and in four Jefferson County weekly newspapers.

Emails Perpetuate Mistruth About a 3.8% Medicare Tax on Real Estate Sales

[As published Feb. 16, 2012, in the Denver Post]

I guess it was to be expected, now that the presidential election year has arrived.  Over 18 months ago I wrote about an email being circulated by the anti-Obama crowd misrepresenting a Medicare tax contained in the Affordable Healthcare Act.

The new tax contained in “Obamacare” extends the 3.8% payroll tax for Medicare to investment income for taxpayers whose Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) is over $200,000 (for a single filer) or over $250,000 (for married filers).

Currently, the Medicare tax, like the Social Security tax, is applied only to “earned” income, but Obama-care extended it to “unearned” income for the super-rich.

The emails which are circulating again claim that if you sell your home for $100,000, you’ll pay $3,800 in “sales tax,” but they neglect to mention that (1) the tax is on profit, not on sales price, (2) that the $250,000 (single)/$500,000 (married) exemption of gains on primary residence still applies, and (3) that the tax only applies if your AGI exceeds $200,000 (single) or $250,000 (married). 

So while the emails — which are still being circulated by Obama-haters — state that this tax applies to the entire purchase price on every home sale, it is, in fact, unlikely to apply to more than 1% of the population.

Even if a married millionaire were to sell his home for $600,000 more than he paid for it, he would probably have no taxable gain at all, since $500,000 of the gain is exempt, and his costs of selling could be over $100,000.  And how many millionaires are selling their homes for a big profit nowadays?

Here’s an offer for those who believe they’ll be taxed — List with me and I’ll pay the tax for you out of the commission I earn!

So, right off the bat, let’s recognize that almost no homeowner is going to be paying the Medicare tax on the sale of his/her home.  And if they are, it’s not 3.8% of the sale price but 3.8% of the profit in excess of $250,000 or $500,000.

So that leaves only investors — you know, the guys with really good accountants who probably have an AGI well below those of us with earned income. If any of them pays this tax on their AGI over $200,000 or $250,000, they can afford it. Period.

Yet, when this truth is explained to the Obama-haters, their response is typified by this response from a Realtor on a LinkedIn group which I monitor: “Even though this only applies to the top 5%, it is only the beginning…”  Or, more typically, they don’t hear you and keep on spreading the mistruth.