Trump math

            Since, they say, Trump is a billionaire, he is obviously capable of fixing the economy.  But you go to his webiite and see unbalanced finances much like Hillary’s.  Megyn Kelly put up a graphic in the last debate.  Trump claimed he could save $300B in “making deals” over Medicare drugs.  Alas, the entire amount Medicare spends for drugs is just $110B.  Even if the drug companies gave it free, you only save $110B. 

            It gets worse.  Trump wants to add spending of $25B on the border and the VA, $60B on Soc. Sec., $50B on Medicare, and $70B on defense.  Total is over $200B.  Where’s it going to come from?  With the budget already underwater by $500B, you can’t promise a balanced budget (also one of his claims) unless you find a way among all other categories to save a total of $700B.  But since entitlements are $2700B of the $3800B budget that leaves $1100B.  But then realize that $645B defense spending and a whole lot more like national parks, federal dams, and roads take the pile you can try to find savings to about $400B. Can you save $700B out of that $400B?   

The Tax Policy Center scores his tax cuts as costing $9.5T over ten years and others put it at $15T in increased debt. This guy even outdoes Obama!

            All politicians promise too  much, but Trump seems to make up policy as he goes along. If he does become the Republican nominee, you’ll need to learn new math.  I just don’t see a plan like this showing competence.

            Poll just showed Hillary leads him by 18 points.  But,the TV commentators say, Trump is bringing new people into the Republican party.  Let’s look at that claim.  If 40% of the public votes R, 40% votes D, 20% are Independents, it is often said that successful pols have to concentrate on the independents as a key to winning elections. Notice the fatal assumption—that an R automatically gets  40% base vote. Secondly, the independents vote half as often as partisans, so their 20% votes like 10.  Now suppose you fail to inspire your base and 1/10 of them don’t vote.  You have lost 4 points.  To make that much up among Independents, you’ll have go from 50% of Independent vote to 90%.  This is what happened to Romney in 2012.  He didn’t get enough enthusiasm of his base and couldn’t make it up among I’s. 

            Now consider this.  75% of people are registered.  In a Presidential year, only 67% of that 75% actually vote—about half the population decides the new Prez.  (2012:126M votes cast out of 242M adults over age 18) If your party is enthused and your candidacy turns them on and they are unified, you can swell the base by about 15%.  That is what Reagan did in 1980.  Polls showed Carter close but he didn’t turn out the vote and lost by 12%.

                So far Trump doesn’t have anywhere near that kind of support.