patrick.net

Trump is being a politician. If it sounds better to say “American businesses pay the highest taxes!” Then he says that. Even if it’s not absolutely strictly true in the entire world. The point is thus made: “American corporate taxes are too high.”
And thanks to his bold statement, the word gets out. Even fact checking this statement for niggling errors doesn’t hurt the true goal, but promotes it! People learn even more about how high the USA corporate tax is in relation to other nations.

Is it strictly a true statement? No. Probably someone somewhere pays more. But it’s not misleading in purpose: the effect of saying “we pay very high tax relative to our competitors” or saying “our corporate taxes are the most in the world!” It’s more sensational and thus more eye and ear grabbing to say the second rather than the dry and uninspiring truth. This is why successful politicians don’t stick to the truth.

I think when Trump starts lying about things people actually care about, they will care that he’s lying.

I don't mind lowering the corporate rates, and suggested as much during the campaign. The reason is simple.
Companies can push net income around to avoid taxes. Ideally, it is combined with corporate tax reform, so that the effective rate becomes competitive, but not a giveaway. We are after all a prestigious place to be located, and should not be begging companies with lower than typical taxes. They should have done it in such a way to make it revenue neutral. That is, companies should bring income home to the US and the net taxes should remain similar to what they were before.
However, we should not have given away the store to LLCs, which the Trump family uses to house their real estate investments - both the showy flagship places and the slumlord areas where they sue poor people into oblivion. In addition, the changes on the personal side seem both arbitrary (way to punish blue states) and excessive considering our large debt, low unemployment, and expanding economy.

When I was a kid growing up catholic, I learned that you told the same lie to your parents 5 times, on five different occasions, then obviously when you go to confession you tell the priest you lied 5 times. You might elaborate and tell him it was the same lie, but you absolutely did not say you lied once.

Trump is a pathological liar. A bullshitter, even to himself. The idea that he is on a level similar to other politicians with this is, well, a lie.