“The problem we Americans now face — one that citizens of
modern nations have faced in various parts of the world for centuries — is
that our government, having been seized and now run by
psychopathic predators, has become predatory itself rather than protective.- Thom
Hartman, Predators Always Need Prey, smirkingchimp.com
Five months ago I warned, in a blog post about Trumpers trying to create incentives for more young people to have kids :
"Those specialized, tax-deferred, long-term Trump 530A investment accounts ("Trump accounts") for children born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028- won't help . Created under the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, these accounts provide a $1,000 initial Treasury-funded deposit, invested in stocks to build wealth."
But what I didn't know then, and only learned recently in a WSJ piece from Adam Michel -the Director of Tax Policy Studies at Cato Institute- is that these misbegotten accounts are unlikely to build wealth even in the long term. Why? Double taxation.
As Mr. Michel puts it:
"My 1-year-old son qualifies for a Trump Account, and I’ve opened it to claim the $1,000 government deposit. But I won’t be putting any of my personal after-tax wages in it, and neither should most parents. Normal investments get taxed twice. You pay taxes when you earn the money as wages, and then any profit you make on the investment gets taxed again at the lower capital-gains rate. Nearly every tax-advantaged investment account—401(k)s and individual retirement accounts, 529 plans for education—eliminates either the wage tax on the way in or the capital-gains tax on the way out.
A traditional IRA lets you make pretax contributions and taxes
the withdrawals. A Roth IRA flips it.
The result is similar: tax the money going in or tax it going out. Trump
accounts do both. The accounts accept after tax dollars from parents and other
authorized individuals, but when the child turns 18, they convert to the traditional
IRA for retirement.
Adding:
"That means any gains, along with the original $1,000, are
taxed at withdrawal as ordinary income rather than at the lower capital gains
rate. (Which would have been applied if the investment weren’t in a Trump
account.) Instead you pay taxes on the front end and the high rate on the back
end – no deductions, no capital gains rate, no flexibility."
Of course, because the 529 is a rational plan, not a grifter's bait and switch. I mean what more can you want given a sensible option for which money goes in after tax and qualified withdrawals are tax free? Besides which, as Michel points out, the 529s have been made even better by recent rules changes, i.e. by allowing up to $35,000 to be rolled over into a Roth IRA. The plus? The child's funds are liberated from the education restrictions.
Michel advises that the Trump accounts can be "fixed", but that assumes the deranged, grifting lunatic sitting in the Oval Office is ok with that happening. I doubt it. Trump, to remind readers, is only out for grifting for the benefit of his own odious clan as even a recent WSJ editorial notes, e.g.
The Trump Family and ‘Honest Graft’ - WSJ
So no one should buy into any codswallop pertaining to "change" for anything Dotard has incepted, and that includes finally returning the reflecting pool to what it was before the orange fungus turned it into a swamp.
See Also:
Trump busted for self-dealing as MAGA says enough! Ari reports the receipts
And:
by John Feffer | July 2, 2026 - 4:58am | permalink
— from Foreign Policy In Focus
The Trump administration concluded a recent mineral deal with Kazakhstan that, not surprisingly, enriches not only Trump’s own family but that of his secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick. Trump’s two eldest sons, part owners of Dominari Securities, are set to profit from the Kazakh tungsten deal. So is Cantor Fitzgerald, the investment firm run by Lutnick’s two sons.
As The New York Times pointed out in its investigation of the scheme, “Their sons were soon doing business with partners in a deal that their fathers were negotiating, continuing a pattern of self-enrichment in the second Trump administration that has few precedents in American history.”
And:
by Ellen Brown | July 1, 2026 - 4:34am | permalink
As Americans prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, few are paying attention to a bill moving through Congress that could seriously impinge on our financial independence.
The Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act, H.R. 4766, is slated to make privately issued stablecoins a major component of the U.S. monetary system. Supporters see stablecoins as a way to strengthen the dollar’s global role while creating a vast new market for U.S. Treasury securities. Critics see the rise of programmable private money that can be monitored, frozen, or restricted by its issuers. Banks fear the loss of the deposits that are essential to advancing affordable credit. What appears to be a debate about digital tokens has thus become a battle over the future of banking itself and finance.
And:
Donors were misled by Trump-backed Freedom 250, House Democrats allege - The Washington Post
Excerpt:
Some donors who intended to give money to a bipartisan effort to
celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary were, instead, steered to a White
House-backed initiative under false pretenses, House Democrats allege in
a report released
Thursday morning, citing whistleblower interviews and newly obtained documents.
The donors meant to give money to America250, a congressionally
chartered initiative to celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial, according to
Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee. They instead were given
routing and account numbers that directed their funds to Freedom 250, which
President Donald Trump established last year to organize anniversary events,
And:
Trump Made $1 Billion on Crypto Deals While His Fans Lost a Fortune - WSJ
Excerpt:
Morten Christensen made a big bet on digital tokens sold by the
Trump family’s World Liberty Financial last year, hoping that a surge in value
might be enough to help him retire.
Instead, the value of those tokens tanked. While Christensen and
many like him lost big, the president made a fortune, netting $800 million from
that crypto project, according to a financial disclosure he filed this week.
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