by
Walter Brasch
With a month left before the November
general election, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are trash-talking each other
in a financial race to the White House.
According to the latest filing with the
Federal Election Commission, Clinton has raised about $516.8 million for her
campaign. Total spending by outside groups and SuperPacs supporting her was an
additional $31.7 million; the total spent opposing her was about $40.2 million.
Trump has raised about $205.9 million.
About 45 percent of his income is from individual contributors; one-third is
from Trump himself. Total spending by outside groups and superPACs supporting
Trump is about $69 million; opposition spending is about $139.7 million.
Both Clinton and Trump are spending heavy
on TV ads. Clinton and pro-Clinton outside groups have spent about $190 million,
and Trump and pro-Trump outside groups have spent about $50 million, according
to data compiled by Advertising Analytics. However, Trump has mitigated the
difference by a barrage of Tweets to 12 million followers, and by constant
calls to TV stations. In Pennsylvania, one of nine “swing states,” Clinton has
outspent Trump, $17 million to $6 million.
Trump’s problem isn’t a case of having
less income than Clinton. Every time he opens his mouth, network TV and cable
news stations are more than willing to air whatever he utters. His problem is a
malignant case of braggadocio. He brags
about how great a businessman he is, and says he is smart because he doesn’t
pay taxes but he uses every tax code loophole he, his attorneys, and
accountants can find. This past week, the New
York Times disclosed he took a $917 million loss in 1995, and could easily
have written off income for every year since then. In a twisting logic that
baffles even those who never studied philosophy, Trump blames Clinton because,
he says, “Why didn’t she ever try to change those
laws so I couldn’t use them?” His
four bankruptcies helped assure his companies would have losses. However,
because he refuses to release copies of his taxes, unlike every major party
candidate in the past four decades, it’s difficult to determine if Trump is a
great and experienced businessman or just a great and experienced juggler.
Also within this past week, the New York
attorney general issued a cease and desist order against the Trump Foundation
for not registering with the state’s Charities Bureau and for violating state
rules by making several donations from the Fund to politicians and political
groups. The Washington Post reported
that the Foundation probably violated IRS regulations by spending $20,000 for a
portrait of Trump, and $12,000 for a jersey and a football helmet autographed
by Tim Tebow. The newspaper previously reported that the Foundation has spent
about $250,000 to settle lawsuits. His problems won’t end with New York. The
Foundation wasn’t registered in the 40 states that require registration. It is possible
that Pennsylvania, California, and Illinois, three of the states that are
rigorous in enforcing rules for charities may file against the Foundation.
A third problem that surfaced this past
week is an Associated Press story, based upon statements by about two dozen
crew members and contestants of Trump’s “The Apprentice USA” TV reality show.
According to the AP, citing the sources, “Trump repeatedly
demeaned women with sexist language,” including rating “female contestants by
the size of their breasts and talked about which ones he’d like to have sex
with.” The cast and crew of his show also told the AP that Trump wanted his
female celebrity contestants to show more cleavage and wear shorter dresses. Hope
Hicks, speaking on behalf of Trump, called the statements “outlandish,
unsubstantiated, and totally false claims fabricated by publicity hungry,
opportunistic, disgruntled former employees [and they] have no merit
whatsoever.” However, the AP’s story confirms that Trump has a history of
demeaning women, something the Clinton campaign has seized upon in its TV ad
campaign that has a series of comments by Trump who calls women pigs, fat,
bimbo, ugly, and other names not suitable for a family-based newspaper. That
and his frequent use of obscenity and disregard for civility alone makes him
unsuitable for the presidency, according to the ad campaign.
Trump
has attacked Clinton for her e-mail scandal, something she should have
acknowledged months before her public apology. In response to her attacks upon
him not being suitable for office, Trump charges Clinton as unfit for office,
and adds crook and liar to his definition of who she is.
The
independent Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CFRB) analyzed each
candidate’s economic plans and concluded that Clinton’s proposed budget would
increase the debt during the next decade by $200 billion, and Trump’s business
model proposal would increase the debt by $5.3 trillion. The CFRB noted,
“Neither candidate has presented a proposal to address our growing national
debt and put it on a more sustainable path, nor have they offered a proposal
for shoring up the Social Security, Medicare, or Highway trust funds.
By the election, each candidate, their
SuperPacs, and outside groups will have spent more $1 billion to be elected to
an office that pays $400,000 a year.
By contrast, the Libertarian Party’s Gary
Johnson raised about $8.5 million, and the Green Party’s Jill Stein raised
about $1.9 million. Both have solid platforms and strong ideas that might
benefit all Americans, but Americans don’t hear them. Neither candidate has the
financial income the Democratic and Republican candidates have; they don’t
receive the funds from numerous lobbyists; they don’t get the attention of the
mainstream media. Just as important, Congress, made up of Democrats and
Republicans, with Bernie Sanders as the only independent, are reluctant to pass
campaign finance reform.
And that is why a third party candidacy
can’t survive at this time.
[Dr.
Brasch’s latest book is Fracking America:
Sacrificing Health and the Environment for Short-Term Economic Benefit.]
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