I recently ran across a thread in FB where the writer proclaims:
The covid king contracted a potentially life threatening virus, a virus that he described as a hoax, and is now getting the best health care in the world provided at public expense — an expense he contributed 750 dollars to over the last decade or so — while simultaneously trying to strip millions of people of their basic health care. Please let that sink in before you vote, and please help this go viral.
My take: Whenever a post asks for help to “make it go viral”, I immediately question it’s validity. This one’s no different. I believe they call this sort of post a “dog-whistle”, as it’s certainly outside the auditory range of anyone equipped with a web browser.
To rebut the points individually:
• On Feb. 28, President Donald Trump likened the Democrats’ criticism of his administration’s response to the then emerging coronavirus outbreak to their efforts to impeach him, saying “this is their new hoax.” To my knowledge Trump has never dismissed CV as a hoax, he’s instead bestowed that descriptor on unfounded criticisms of his administration’s response to it. Even the left’s favorite “fact-checker”, Snopes, had to admit to this one. Trump consistently likens such critiques to the long list of patently false accusations from the left: Russian collusion, quid pro quo in Ukraine, the impeachment, and all the other fabricated (subversive) efforts by the Dems to scuttle his presidency.
• The NYT assertion that Trump paid only $750 in taxes in 2016 and 2017 — at the recent Trump/Biden debate, this is one accusation I personally thought the president handled poorly (and said as much elsewhere). As reported by UncleSamsMisguidedChildren:
A lawyer for the Trump Organization, Alan Garten, also denied to the New York Times that the president paid such a small amount of taxes – saying in a statement obtained by Fox News that Trump “has paid tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes to the federal government, including paying millions in personal taxes since announcing his candidacy in 2015.”
“The New York Times’ story is riddled with gross inaccuracies. Over the past decade the President has paid tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes to the federal government,” Garten said. “While we tried to explain this to the Times, they refused to listen and rejected our repeated request that they show us any of the documentation they purport to be relying on to substantiate their claims.”
He added: “Obviously this is just part of the Times’ ongoing smear campaign in the run up to the election.”
The New York Times did not release the copies of Trump’s tax filings they had received, saying they were protecting sources.
In addition, even if one believes that Trump’s personal tax liability during 2016 and 2017 was minuscule, as with most owners of large corporations, the vast majority of his profits were corporate earnings, which are taxed separately. Trump’s response that he had paid millions in taxes, included the taxes on those corporate profits, is true, but he failed to adequately make this distinction at the debate. IOW, I think he fumbled the ball a little on that one.
• What this guy means by “simultaneously trying to strip millions of people of their basic health care”, I have no clue. Building the political capital to repeal and replace Obamacare has been a tough slog, as there are roadblocks everywhere you look. But he did manage to repeal the individual mandate, and has staunchly supported coverage for pre-existing conditions. In addition, there’s the EO he signed to radically reduce drug prices, which is slated to kick in soon. I’m expecting more significant action on the health coverage thing in Trump’s 2nd term. My personal preference, however, would be to get the government out of healthcare altogether and restore free market competition in the industry. The costs of anything the government presumes to “improve” inevitably rise exponentially… bureaucracy ain’t cheap.
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