The election of DJT has been very expensive for me and my wife. How expensive?
increase health care costs $26k
loss of solar tax credit $30k
loss of business sales to Canada and Europe $50k
on the plus side
extension of tax cuts $15k
total -$91k
So the president who folks claim is good for business owners sure isn't good for this business owner. Increasing tariffs by about 30% on my sales into Europe and Canada has.....hurt sales. While Canada is not a main market for us, its not nothing.
Health care is something I think many of the talking heads don't understand in a direct way, and for sure our elected leaders have no clue. If you are employed by a large business you might find health insurance for a couple aged 50-64 costs you about $12k a year in premiums and has a 5k per person deductible. You don't realize your employer is probably paying $10-15k a year for that plan nor the advantage of being in a more healthy insurance pool helping to keep costs down. In 2026 thanks to Trump's BBB legislation if you are in the individual market place (and yes the preexisting condition is baaaack) you are looking at $22k in premiums for a husband and wife and an individual $13k deductible (ie before our insurance company pays a penny we pay $48k). Unless you have a net worth of over $1m its just not worth paying that kind of money---better off to hope to be healthy and risk bankruptcy than pay that level of insurance to protect your assets. Is it good for our country to have large numbers of people risking bankruptcy? Probably not, but don't tell Donald that. He loves bankruptcy. But lets be really clear, when someone doesn't pay the hospital those debts get socialized to the rest of us---which will drive up our costs. The GOP's BBB will create a negative reinforcing spiral of rising health costs for all.
We are in the process of building an all electric house (our neighborhood isn't serviced by a gas utility). We are using heat pumps and all kinds of highly efficient appliances along with lots of insulation and excellent windows. Still the ROI (return on investment) of our solar system is ....4% A 4% ROI when money market rates are 3.5% is really bad. Most investors would look for an ROI of 8-12%. With the tax credits our ROI would be 7.8%. Still a touch low, but in the right neighborhood. 4% is horrible, and only makes sense if you think the cost of energy is going to skyrocket---which I suspect it will. So we are going to pay up for a solar system and if energy costs stay low hope that powers the US economy and if energy costs explode then our investment is wise. Still discouraging people from adding energy production to the US seems profoundly stupid.
On the plus side extending the tax breaks is saving me $15k a year, while adding an estimated $2 trillion (CBO scoring) to the deficit over the next decade. No surprise that our CEO in chief's various businesses have declared bankruptcy 6 times.
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