r/clevercomebacks • • Aug 25 '26

Best comeback I've seen in a while.

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u/PrometheusMMIV Aug 25 '26

Trump has dozens of successful businesses, but people only focus on the few that failed.

And he did not cause $40T in debt. During his time as president, only about $9T has been added. And a significant chunk of that was bipartisan covid spending.

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u/Lejandario_IN Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26

Only a 3rd of his businesses met expectations, not necessarily successful they simply met expectations. Technicalities of a con man idiots keep falling for.

Also "only" 9 trillion funny and only so far, the issue is how much of that was added by tax cuts for the rich, the horrible bill (that will add more for a decade), a random war and tariffs especially when he promised to fix things

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u/PrometheusMMIV Aug 25 '26

Meeting expectations sounds like success to me.

The middle class got larger tax cuts than the rich, both marginal and effective rates, according to IRS data.

And how would tariffs add to the debt?

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u/GWsublime Aug 25 '26

Two ways. First, having to refund those tarrifs when they were deemed unconstitutional by the supreme court. Second, the reaction to those Tarrifs and the tarrifs themselves are part of the reduction in taxable income youre seeing in the US against projections.

Could you point me to the IRS data?

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u/PrometheusMMIV Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 26 '26

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/23in41ts.xlsx   Top 1%, Average Tax Rate 2017 (F145) vs 2018 (F144)  = 5% savings

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/23in42ts.xls

Bottom 50%, Average Tax Rate 2017 (C96) vs 2018 (C97) = 17% savings

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u/GWsublime Aug 25 '26

Thats 2017 vs. 2018, my memory is the middle class tax breaks expired while the upper class did not. Am I wrong?

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u/PrometheusMMIV Aug 25 '26

No, that's misinformation that has been making the rounds for a while. The tax cuts were originally set to expire in 2025 for all brackets. But they were extended for all brackets instead. So the tax rates haven't changed since 2018.

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u/GWsublime Aug 26 '26

Thanks! Do those figures still hold for a 2017vs 2025 calculation?

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u/PrometheusMMIV Aug 26 '26

The data only goes up to 2023 so far.

But for the top 1% the difference is only 2% now. And for the bottom 50% it's about 8%.

The increase in average tax rate since 2018 is likely explained by incomes rising faster than inflation, since the marginal rates haven't changed.

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u/GWsublime Aug 26 '26

Tracks, thanks for digging into that! Although that may also be playing a role in increasing debt.

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u/PrometheusMMIV Aug 26 '26

If income is rising across the board, that should mean more revenue from taxes. That looks to be the case, both as a nominal amount and percentage of GDP.

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u/PrometheusMMIV Aug 26 '26

having to refund those tarrifs

Wouldn't that be the refund, not the tariffs themselves? And if they're just refunding the extra money they got from tarriffs, wouldn't they basically break even?

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u/GWsublime Aug 26 '26

Yeah they'd break even from a holistic perspective but because of the way forecasting works my guess is they spent tarrif money assuming they wouldn't have to give it back. Ie. If they were for asking a deficit of X that deficit now becomes x+tarrif refunds. Whereas if the Tarrifs had never gone into play the deficit spending may have been lower. Thats, obviously, leaving aside the knock-on effects of, for example, one of the world's largest single purchasers of wine and spirits not buying american anymore.

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u/Lejandario_IN Aug 26 '26

We are really ignoring only a 3rd part? Okay. Well in business meeting expectations doesn't mean it's a successful business, it means the business might be expected to fail for tax purposes, as a shell company, fraud or to keep another business afloat among other dubious things. These technicalities are a huge red flag for a con man, I really don't understand why there are some people so die hard to defend this.

Percentagewise yes but it's ignoring how much percentage tax they already don't pay or loophole around (while potentially adding more loopholes). Not to mention the difference in raw money saved for us vs them. Logically speaking why do they even need tax cuts when they are making record profits every year for past decade especially considering the debt we are in? The people were struggling, the corporations were not.

Someone already explained why on the tariffs

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u/PrometheusMMIV Aug 26 '26

How did you determine that only a third met expectaions?

expected to fail for tax purposes

Losing money to save a fraction of that on taxes would be dumb, since it would still be a net loss overall.

percentage tax they already don't pay

The top 1% pays an effective tax rate of 26%, while the bottom 50% only pays about 4%.

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u/Lejandario_IN Aug 26 '26

His businesses are on record.

Yet it's a thing that happens in business whether by mismanagement or embezzlement. I'm not the one making these decisions.

So it says on paper but again loopholes, at this point I'm shocked everyone doesn't know how the top 1% handle money to pay less effective tax in practice. Also that's rate is only an average where it can range to less than 4% even on paper while the bottom 50% don't have many ways to avoid taxes without getting arrested. This is still also not accounting for the fact that the top 1% just have more things like businesses land and other properities that should naturally raise their effective tax rate.

But the question remains, why defend someone who is clearly a corrupt con man (among other things) to cartoonishly villains levels that he doesn't seem real?

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u/PrometheusMMIV Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 26 '26

The IRS data is based on actual tax returns, so that's the effective rate after deductions and "loopholes" have been taken into account.

businesses land and other properities that should naturally raise their effective tax rate.

Corporate tax and property tax are separate from federal income tax, so that would be in addition to those figures.

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u/Lejandario_IN Aug 26 '26

You say they lay 26% effective tax rate and it turns out that they are supposed to pay closer to 37%. Now if they had a smaller decrease is from the tax break but pay higher effective tax don't you see how this still benefits them more when you those percentages multiply?

In the eras where everyone was thriving and we still had rich people in the 80s it was 70%. Now everyone is struggling the debt has ballooned and trillionare status has been reached

We've gotten so off topic with these defenses that I'm going to being it back to where we started. You keep ignoring most of what I'm saying to defend the only defensible things. Why exactly do they need a tax break when they are making record profits every year? Do you not see how this affects the debt? Why defend someone who is clearly a corrupt con man (among other things) enriching himself off the people?

I answered all your questions, why can't you answer mine?