Editorial: In Missouri, President Trump preaches the prosperity gospel
“God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” — Genesis 1:31
“In recent years,” President Donald Trump told his invited audience in Springfield, “millions of Americans have watched the prosperity slip away. And it was not pleasant to watch, especially for me. I would sit back and I could see what happened, and it was not good.”
It doesn’t have to be that way, though, the president said, and argued during his event at the Loren Cook Co. that with lower taxes, just the opposite would come to pass.
Yes, Trump essentially preached the prosperity gospel on Wednesday. And like Houston megachurch pastor Joel Osteen, he promised that all the abundance we deserve would soon flow to us.
Osteen, who had to be shamed into opening his Lakewood Church to those seeking shelter from floodwaters after Hurricane Harvey, has himself made a fortune telling his vast teleflock that “God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny he has laid out for us.”
The president has a similarly simple and appealing message: “If we want to renew our prosperity and restore opportunity, then we must reduce the tax burden of our companies and workers.” Ideally, the corporate rate should be 15 percent, he said, or “we cannot restore our wealth.”
When Ronald Reagan cut the rate, Trump said, “our economy just went beautifully right through the roof, the middle class thrived, median family income increased,” and that’s what’s going to happen again.
(No wonder he went to Missouri to say all this rather than to Sam Brownback’s Kansas, where he would have gotten laughs in all the wrong places.)
The president did not get into specifics, beyond saying that he wants to simplify the tax code, eliminate loopholes, make it cheaper to bring money that has been “parked overseas” back into this country and cut taxes for the middle class. That way, “they can keep more of their hard-earned paychecks and they can do a lot of things with those paychecks. … It means they will go out and spend their money, and it will be a beautiful thing to watch.” To review, “they will keep their money and spend their money and buy our products, our factories will be moving again, companies will move back to the country and jobs will prosper.”
Alas, it’s up to Congress to flesh out his word: “I do not want to be disappointed by Congress, you understand me?” And all that stands between us and the good life are those dastardly Democrats.
So if endangered Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill “does not do this for you, you have to vote her out of office. You gotta make that commitment.” If you want to prosper, that is.
This story was originally published August 30, 2017 at 6:11 PM with the headline "Editorial: In Missouri, President Trump preaches the prosperity gospel."