Donald Trump's troubling "60 Minutes" Interview
I have praised Donald Trump numerous times for his stances on immigration and more recently his comments about fighting radical Islam. But on Sunday he was interviewed on "60 Minutes" and answered a number of questions in a troubling way.
On immigration, he repeated his statement that he is going to build a physical wall, and that's good. But when talking about the illegals who will leave and return quickly, Trump said, "If they've done well, they're going out and coming back in legally". What does "done well" mean? I don't think he's establishing a base income, saying that illegals have to have x income to come back. I am guessing what he is saying is that those who have "done well" are those without criminal records. In that case 90% or more of the illegals might be eligible to come back. That's disturbing, if true.
Trump also said his tax plan will remove even more people from the tax rolls. Already the bottom 50% pay less than 3% of all income taxes. This creates terrible incentives because once a majority are not subject to the tax, they will have no problem voting for politicians who will raise it on the rest. Meanwhile Trump wants to raise taxes even more on high income earners. Such measures will only perpetuate the "gimme other peoples' money" welfare state.
Trump said that he will bring back jobs to America by slapping tariffs on imports from China and Mexico. But when they do the same, our exports will be hurt and if it goes on for some time many jobs will be lost. Trump, constantly repeating his mantra "bringing jobs back to America" shows he has no understanding of comparative advantage and how it works. Some countries can produce some products more efficiently than others and at lower cost. Under the theory of comparative advantage, free trade causes each country to lose jobs in industries that are not internationally competitive but to gain even more jobs in industries that are. The result is not only good for overall job growth but produces lower prices and higher standards of living for consumers. But Trump's plan would raise the price of consumer goods and in a trade war cost many American jobs.
Trump says Social Security won't need fixing or saving, that even the retirement age can stay the same because America will get rich from all the jobs "he will bring back". That's very questionable.
On Syria, Trump makes a great deal of sense by saying we should let Assad and ISIS, who are both quite evil, fight it out and deplete each other (something I have been advocating for some time). And if the Russians want to get involved and do our work for us, says Trump, so much the better. But on Iraq Trump says he would consider sending American ground troops again. Now the Iraqi Army is basically a non-entity in Iraq. Doing the heavy fighting against ISIS there are radical Shi'ite militias and Iranian troops. Both have awful histories of slaughtering Sunni civilians. So Trump would consider expending American lives to fight ISIS, a radical Sunni threat, to defend Iraq, basically a radical Shi'ite regime. That's also troubling.
Most people have been attracted to Trump because of his strong stand on immigration. But I don't see how anyone can vote for him until he concretely defines how many "the good ones" really are, and how quickly they will be able to return. His 60 Minutes interview simply raises more questions than it answers.
This article was written by Ed Straker, senior writer of NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.
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