Posted on 02/08/2016 1:06:58 PM PST by conservativejoy
I have to admit that I found one aspect of the Trump campaign compelling: his claim that he was self-funding and therefore free of any obligations to his financiers. Any regular reader of mine knows my obsession with money in American politics. Money may not be the root of all evil, but it is the catalyst that produces the most evil in American politics! However my gut tells me to process anything coming from The Donald’s mouth with a healthy dose of skepticism.
On face value I mistrust Trump. He looks slimy to me and has a history of being very money driven. He has a track record of making money primarily by using other people's money not his own. He has declared various bankruptcies and walked away from deals when they soured leaving other harmed and/or holding the bag.
I was one of the last to take his candidacy seriously because I couldn't figure out his motivation for running for President. Trump in not a civically motivated guy. He has never held office before. From a monetary standpoint if he won the job and performed it straight up he'd stand to lose money via lost business opportunities if nothing else. He is a guy who admittedly is used to buying politicians - why would he want to be one? My conclusion was that he had figured out some way to make money by running for and/or winning the Presidency. I just hadn't figured out his angle.
August 28th I got the first indication that my gut was on to something. That night Trump ran what had every appearance of being a fundraiser at the home of Ernie Boch, Jr. Trump denied it was a fundraiser. (See my September 1st posting, Warning Label Needed, for the details.) It appears that the Trump campaign took in around $80,000 to $100,000 that night. Not bad for a non-fundraiser!
Last Sunday Glenn Kessler, one of the premier fact-checkers in America, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled, Five myths Donald Trump tells about Donald Trump. Number four was the one that caught my attention: "I'm self-funding my campaign." It is true that Trump does not have a Super PAC at this point and as far as we can tell has not taken any mega-donations from the deep pocketed, but he is far from self-funding.
Kessler looked into the numbers a bit and it doesn't take a lot of imagination to see where Trump can ultimately make money on the project of running for President regardless of the final result. His campaign started with a $1.8 million dollar personal loan. Keep in mind this is a loan. He has subsequently added a little over $100,000 to bringing his total "investment" to $1.9 million in round numbers. During the campaign he has raised $3.9 million in donations. While donations supposedly from smaller donors are certainly preferable to a lump sum or two from some fat cat(s) they are not the candidate's money as Trump would like you to think.
Now let's look at the spending side. The campaign has spent $5.4 million to date. About 25% or $1.35 million was spent with Trump entities, primarily the company that owns his airplane. That money is effectively just shuffled from one Trump pocket to another.
Now we see he has $1.9 million "invested", $1.8 million of which is in the form of a loan that the campaign could very well be paying back to Trump before it is all over. In the process he has already racked up $1.35 million in sales for his companies. Assuming just a 10% profit margin, the profit on the sales exceeds the non-loan "investment" in the campaign. If that loan gets paid off, which it very well may, Trump makes money on the deal.
I find it commendable that Trump has not taken anonymous, dark money to date. Does anyone actually expect that to continue past the convention if Trump is the nominee? Given his track record he will look for the loan to be repaid first and worry about his pledge second. A donation to the Trump campaign is like helping him pay off his loan to himself. Self-funding means with your own money; not other people's money!
I hate attention whores.........AND LIARS
I find it commendable that Trump has not taken anonymous, dark money to date.
So what's your point in trying to drive traffic to this totally unknown website when the content of his article totally discredits the intent of the title?
Desperation is a terrible affliction. LOL!
Haaaahaaaahaaaa....they sure are busy.
Trump Continues to Tell the Myth That He Is Self Funding His Campaign
Donald Trump May Be A Self Starter, But He Is Not Self Funding
Trump Not Exactly Self Funding His Campaign
There are literally pages of references on this.
Someone said....
Who is someone?
You know, someone.
Oh. Ok.
(eyeroll)
See post 64. There are dozens of articles on this.
Donald Trump is loaning his campaign money.
The money is coming from Donald Trump.
How is this hard to understand?
Donald Trump is being reimbursed from campaign donations. That is not self funding.
in an early rally Trump said he was self funding through primary at least, or some similar to those words. I have no clue which rally it was, but I wondered myself how much of his campaign he would financially cover and how he would cover it, so I was glad for part of answer to my wondering.
I truly don’t have an issue if Trump put up seed money and is receiving small and medium donations from people willingly donating.
I do not like PACs and such that individuals/businesses/lobbists give huge sums essentially buying the candidate, for favors later, like other candidates use.
I also don’t like if any tax payer monies are funneled to campaigns in any way.
Trump IS self funding...your absurd blog post proposing otherwise is just horse hockey. Again.....EVERYTHING HAS TO BE DETAILED ON FEC FORMS. Jeez.
(Unless it’s a CRuz GS loan...lol. Trump is not that amateur, to think you can get away with NOT reporting items, on FEC forms, unlike CRuz.)
If CRuz is such dear friends with Dr Carson and his wife....why didn’t he simply call Carson directly...or text...to confirm if Ben was actually getting out?
To blame it on a CNN report is dirty....especially considering that his campaign ‘mastermind’ (LOL!), Jeff Roe has pulled this dirty ‘campaign has been suspended’ cr@p before....you know...on the poor chap who later killed himself :(
Not a good associate to have...for a Christian...(since CRuzer’s always like to bring up the CRuz is holier than thou’s candidate nonsense.)
This is just another go 'round that appears every few days to clog up the forum with Trump hate. How many times will we have to see this exact same smear.... another thirty or so as the campaign drags on.
>>>”So you are not just reporting what someone else wrote, but are standing behind it..”
It’s just not a self-funded campaign as Trump claims.
>>”...and trying to argue that there is some deep issue here.”
As I said before: “Each can weigh the profundity of this issue for his or her self..”
Oh well then he's not entirely self funding his campaign ‘ride’ to the White House after all.....
So in other words....it's ok then that the buses, and gas etc. hotel accommodations etc. that other candidates use wouldn't be considered outside funding either.... As you know the ground was never a level playing field as for any of these candidates....for none of the candidates have private jets, or personal hotels, nor the wealth Trump has to run a campaign...his distinct advantages are nothing more than a wealthy man "paying" for the priviledge of running.
Frankly I don't want to see it where only the wealthy can afford to run......
How gracious you are. I sent you a FReemail- had you confused with someone else. Once again, Mea culpa!
No thanks...If I want to read anti Trump, Cruz or Rubio BS I'll read what you folks and your MSM propagandists post in its entirety........
Cruz didn’t know about the CNN report until late in the evening. As soon as he found out, he called Carson.
LOL.
Sure, okay.
Jeff Roe is innocent, as well.
/chuckle
You get paid to do this? Even worse, you do it for free?
No apology needed! I wasn’t offended (though I did confuse you with someone else).
I’ve never seen Trump lie, either. One my Top 3 reasons that he’s my choice for president.
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