Well, they finally did it. The left wing media got its wish. It got hold of a Trump tax return. Leaking tax returns is a felony, but we’ll not dwell on that. Instead, let’s remember that a few days ago someone whose name rhymes with stickolas pistoff urged the IRS to illegally leak Donald Trump’s tax return and voila! it got leaked and Rachel Maddow pounced.
With great fanfare she tweeted:
BREAKING: We've got Trump tax returns. Tonight, 9pm ET. MSNBC.
(Seriously).
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) March 14, 2017
Be careful what you wish for, as the saying goes.
Her monumental scoop turned her into a monumental pooper scooper.
On her Tuesday show, Rachel Maddow teased a scoop: She had Donald Trump’s 2005 tax returns. It was the first time his federal returns would be released.
Small digression: MSNBC’s Maddow didn’t have them. Investigative reporter David Cay Johnston got them, and went on her show to talk about it.
Anyway, when she finally revealed what was in the taxes, it was not a huge deal. Trump earned about $150 million in income in 2005, and paid $38 million in taxes, thanks to the alternative minimum tax, which he wants to kill.
Of course, CNBC had to add:
This gives Trump an effective tax rate of about 24 percent, which Johnston pointed out was roughly equal to what he and his wife, who are an upper middle class couple, pay.
Thing is, it’s a much higher rate than paid by either barack obama or Bernie Sanders. The democrat socialist icon, Senator Freebie, paid a paltry 13% in taxes.
And also let us hark back to some of the things thrown at Trump. Hillary Clinton:
During the September 26, 2016 presidential debate, Democratic presidential nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speculated that one reason Donald Trump might not have released his tax returns is that “he doesn’t want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he’s paid nothing in federal taxes.”
Clinton said, “So you’ve gotta ask yourself, why won’t he release his tax returns? And I think there may be a couple of reasons. First, maybe he’s not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe he’s not as charitable as he claims to be. Third, we don’t know all of his business dealings, but we have been told, through investigative reporting that, he owes about $650 million to Wall Street and foreign banks. Or maybe he doesn’t want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he’s paid nothing in federal taxes. Because the only years that anybody has ever seen, were a couple of years where he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license. And they showed he didn’t pay any federal income tax.”
The NY Times:
The New York Times reporters wrote: “Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show.”
What this episode does is effectively kill the “How much did Trump pay in taxes?” story. Trump paid $38 million in taxes for 2005, most of it in the form of the Alternative Minimum Tax. Once you know Trump has liability under the AMT, you can be pretty much certain that he will be subject to it every year. That means he pays his fair share.
Back to Slate:
Trump’s tax returns, whatever information they happen to contain, constitute a major scoop. Maddow’s social media team ensured the highest possible ratings for that scoop. But if ever a story should have been delivered in a stentorian, fuddy-duddy, nonpartisan manner, this was it. In positioning it as a grand revelation, a vital step in comprehending Trump’s corruption, MSNBC created an exceedingly cynical spectacle. By playing into the network’s loyal liberal audience’s fantasy that there exists a Trump silver bullet, it instead delivered Trump a positive news cycle—the guy pays taxes! Who knew!—amidst the debacle of the AHCA, along with more evidence that the media is aligned against him.
Maddow’s debacle was widely mocked. Among my favorites:
Quick update on Rachel Maddow’s Trump tax return report pic.twitter.com/zLJjSBLL0a
— Salvador Hernandez (@SalHernandez) March 15, 2017
As has been noted on this site already, one cannot help but recall this epic moment:
Rachel Maddow has long been a smarmy and smug know it all. All I can say is
Schadenfreude! Paging Mr. Schadenfruede!
We’ve learned something today. We learned once again that while the left wing media is playing checkers, Donald Trump is playing chess.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.