Team Trump announced a new ad today, and a new plan to spend $10 million airing in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Iowa, Ohio, Colorado, and Virginia. This ad focuses only on the economy, essential saying that Clinton wants to raise taxes and Trump wants to lower them, thus creating jobs.

“In Hillary Clinton’s America, the middle class gets crushed, spending goes up, taxes go up, hundreds of thousands of jobs disappear, it’s more of the same, but worse,” the voice over in the ad says. “In Donald Trump’s America, working families get tax relief. Millions of new jobs created. Wages go up. Small businesses thrive. The American Dream, achievable. Change that makes America great again.”

In a surprising bit of transparency, the Trump Team actually include some footnotes for the claims that they make about Hillary Clinton’s plans to ruin America. Unfortunately, those footnotes are a confusing mess of contradictions.

When the ad says “working families get tax relief” it references “A Pro-Growth Tax Code For All Americans, GOP: A Better Way, 6/24/16” which is the official House GOP plan penned by Paul Ryan that Trump has not endorsed. Additionally, when the ad promises “millions of new jobs” it cites an analysis of that same GOP plan by the Tax Foundation. Nowhere is Trump’s current plan, just a regurgitation of the GOP plan.

The mess goes on. The promise that “wages go up” and “small businesses thrive” under a Trump Presidency are bolstered by the Tax Foundation’s analysis of Trump’s old tax plan, one that he abandoned weeks ago, and removed from his website.

Trump’s original tax plan from almost a year ago that is referenced in the ad had tax levels of 0%, 15% and 25%. Trump has abandoned that plan in favor of the less ludicrous 12%, 25% and 33% bracket supported by the GOP, and referenced in the earlier part of the ad.

There are other big differences between the two plans that Trump references in the ad and the candidate’s current plan. Those are all different plans, in case you weren’t reaading closely. Trump’s plan would keep a deduction on business loans that is expected to cause a $1.2 trillion shortfall over 10 years, among other differences. The GOP plan omits this deduction.

This ad is further evidence that the Trump Team does not have a coherent tax plan, and seems to be falling back on their GOP peers to do the heavy lifting in crafting a viable tax policy. It is truly amazing that the Trump campaign would announce only their second official television ad that is full of contradictions and outdated sources and policies.

Sources:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trumps-new-ad-keep-eye-the-fine-print
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/08/29/donald-trumps-new-ad-reflects-uncertainty-in-tax-plan/
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-ad-credits-tax-plan-he-doesn-t-support-n639376

Click to access ABetterWay-Tax-PolicyPaper.pdf

http://taxfoundation.org/article/details-and-analysis-2016-house-republican-tax-reform-plan
http://taxfoundation.org/article/details-and-analysis-donald-trump-s-tax-plan