Kaine links Trump’s alleged tax avoidance and military spending. That’s an interesting line of attack. Most of the discussion of Trump’s taxes in recent days has focused on the question of fairness: Is it fair that a billionaire can avoid paying taxes for years? (If that is in fact what Trump did.) But Kaine takes that a step further, arguing in effect that not paying taxes is unpatriotic because it starves the government of resources it needs for defense, among other priorities. It will be interesting to see if that criticism has legs. Americans often believe that citizens should pay the taxes they owe, but that they have a right to pay as little as possible.
