Inquirer editorial: Sanders showed Trump where Clinton is vulnerable

There's a lot not to like about the undisciplined nature of Donald Trump's Republican campaign for president. His zigzagging from one alienating remark to another diverts attention from issues such as income inequality, which fueled Bernie Sanders' candidacy before he lost the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton.

Trump gave an economic policy speech last week, but people were talking more about his comments at a rally in North Carolina, which some interpreted as suggesting that gun rights advocates should harm Clinton. "If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks," Trump said. "Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know."

Instead of trying to figure out exactly what Trump meant, voters should be deciphering his tax simplification plan. He said it would "make America great again for everyone, and especially those who have the very least." Except that it won't.

An analysis by the Tax Foundation concluded that Trump's tax cuts would increase a middle-class family's income by only 0.2 percent while increasing income for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans by 5.3 percent. Trump wants to lower the highest tax rate from 39.6 percent to 33 percent and get rid of the estate tax, which already exempts the first $5.45 million for an individual. Even the increased child-care credit he proposes would benefit the wealthy much more than lower-income families whose smaller tax bills would be impacted little if at all by the deduction.

By now Trump may have written off getting a significant amount of the African American vote. Polls put him far behind Clinton with that particular segment of the electorate. But a more aggressive program to reduce America's wealth gap could pay off big with minority voters, even for Trump.

Consider a new study that shows the income divide is even greater when race becomes the lens used to view it. The study by the Corporation for Enterprise Development and the Institute of Policies said the average wealth of white households grew three times more than black families and 1.2 times more than Latino families over the past 30 years. If the trend continues another 30 years, the average wealth of white households will increase $18,000 a year, compared to $750 a year for black households and $2,250 for Latino families.

The study said it would take until the year 2241 for the average African American family to accumulate the same amount of wealth that the average white family already has today. "It's even more startling when we realize that today, America's richest 400 individuals - with a collective net worth of $2.34 trillion - now own more wealth than the entire black population, plus one-third of the Latino population, combined" the study said.

Clinton, as the heir apparent to President Obama, is vulnerable on this subject. Many African Americans who supported Sanders were disappointed that the first black president didn't do more to improve the lives of struggling families. It's debatable whether any of Trump's competitors for the GOP nomination would do any better in addressing America's huge disparity in wealth. But in a nation where minorities are fast becoming the majority, the problem is important.