TOM MORGAN’S MONEY TALK

Hillary Must Be Practicing

How To Blunt Donald Insults

Editor’s Note:  The column, Money Talk, by Tom Morgan of Franklin, the retired Oneonta investment counselor, is syndicated nationally.  Here is this week’s column.

A few thoughts on the campaign for the White House.

By now, millions are lusting for the debates. My guess is that the first one will break records for viewership.

Another guess is that Hillary is already practicing how to handle insults.  She probably has aides flinging every insult they can think of at her. She is rehearsing her replies.

Given Trump’s history, this makes sense. He may well call her a crook and a liar.  He may well demand she answer nasty questions about corruption.

No matter what questions the moderators pose he might snap “Instead of answering this, let us get to the real issue here. Mrs. Clinton lies constantly. The American people want to know why?” Or “The Clinton Foundation is nothing more than a political slush fund. You use it to sell favors. You say it is a charity. You lie.”

She has had months to prepare. A good question is whether The Donald will come up with something outrageous she has overlooked and not prepared for.

Meanwhile, she will attack him just as viciously. We are told he never preps for debates. He may regret this.

The coverage from the big networks has been biased as usual. The Media Research Center has staff watch and evaluate networks for bias.  They have had their hands full.

Their findings on convention coverage were typical of what they have found for decades.

Each party produces videos they show at their conventions.  Networks can choose to let their viewers see them.  CNN allowed three Republican videos to be screened.  They ignored a dozen more.  They switched to the network’s commentators.  Among those videos they skipped were those on the Benghazi mess and the Fast and Furious scandal.

When the Democrat convention arrived CNN showed 18 of that party’s videos.  They allowed 62 minutes of Democrat videos vs. 14 of Republican videos.

In 63 instances their commentators scolded Republicans for negative statements.  They did the same for Democrats but 5 times.

Countless monitors have presented evidence of media bias toward Democrats over the years.  More is the pity for the American public.  We deserve better than this.

Political mouthpieces move back and forth.  From networks to jobs within the Democrat machine.  To jobs in Democrat administrations. It shows in the coverage they present to us. The words objectivity and balance don’t belong in the same sentence with ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and CNN. (Note I refer to news coverage, not opinion programs.)

A final thought is about tax cuts. Hillary promises a number of tax increases. I don’t take them seriously.  For a few reasons.

First, the economy is slowing. We have already had a dismal recovery from our bad recession. The President can spin this fifty ways from Sunday. It doesn’t wash. The economy has never come close to hitting full stride in 8 years.

Jobs figures are lousy. Nowhere near enough new jobs. New business numbers are horrible. New businesses and small businesses produce most of our new jobs.

Meanwhile, new investment by big business is also sluggish. And profits are shrinking for many big businesses. There are innumerable signs we may be headed toward a recession.  There are precious few signs the economy is going to catch fire any time soon.

The economy desperately needs some thoughtful tax cuts.

Back to Hillary as President. She could easily face a recession. If she then pushed for tax increases the new House – likely to be Republican – will fight her big time. It may push for tax cuts instead.

She might create a do-si-do with them. She might cave to tax cuts for some piece of legislation in return. She could say the nasty Republicans forced her to accept tax cuts. And that a deteriorating economy forced her to abandon her tax raising promises.

Whatever happens, I cannot imagine politicians whacking this fragile economy with more tax increases. Yes, I know they often act foolishly, but…

From Tom…as in Morgan.

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