“Kamala Harris, whose ‘Honeymoon’ period is ENDING, and is starting to get hammered in the Polls, just copied my NO TAXES ON TIPS Policy. The difference is, she won’t do it, she just wants it for Political Purposes! This was a TRUMP idea – She has no ideas, she can only steal from me,” posted convicted felon former President Trump on Saturday night. Lol at the “‘Honeymoon’ period is ENDING” part. Just friggin weird and funny how he’s internalizing the shit that the political class eggheads on his team are feeding him. Maybe he’s desperate enough he wants to show them he’s pretending to take their memos seriously with that and the “we have to work hard to define her” line.
Anyway, it’s true enough that Harris is a Janie Come-Lately in how she tossed the tax-free tips promise to the crowd in Nevada on Saturday night. It’s good policy. Even better politics with the shamelessness of it, because there is fucking zero chance that it was an accident or that Harris and her campaign staff were unaware Trump had already made such a pledge. What, if any, larger game is beyond not letting him own such easy, populist appeals is we don’t know, but it’s cool if it’s as simple as trolling Trump and his minions into reacting angrily and claiming it was his idea alone.
Because it wasn’t. On March 16, 2011, then-Texas Congressman Ron Paul introed the “Tax Free Tips Act of 2011,” which “Amends the Internal Revenue Code to exempt tips from the income tax, social security and railroad retirement taxes, unemployment taxes, and tax withholding. Defines ‘tips’ as any gratuity provided to a salaried employee by a customer or client of the employer’s business.”