No, this won’t be on the table until 2021 at the earliest. But the party’s candidates need to offer some solutions.Bloomberg Opinion
S&P 500 companies have returned a record $1 trillion to shareholders over the past year, helped by a recent surge in dividends and stock buybacks following sweeping corporate tax cuts introduced by Republicans, a report on Friday showed...
I have been arguing, since 2016 (e.g., here, here, and here), that one of the likely outcomes of the kind of corporate tax cuts Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans have supported—and, as we saw, eventually rammed through—would be an increase in inequality. That’s because corporations would likely use a portion of their higher profits to engage in stock buybacks, leading to an increase in stock prices. And stock ownership in the United States is already grotesquely unequal. Therefore, the rise in equity prices would disproportionately benefit the small group at the top of the wealth pyramid.
And that’s exactly what is happening. As CNN Money reports, U.S. corporations have showered Wall Street with $214 billion of stock buyback announcements so far this year....Occasional Links & Commentary
The tax-reform bill that US Republicans are attempting to implement is economically indefensible and blatantly unfair. But the US has a much deeper problem: the Anglo-Saxon model of representative government is in serious trouble, and nobody seems to know how to fix it.Project Syndicate
What we are witnessing in the US and indeed throughout the western world is the total failure of capitalism. Capitalism is now merely a looting machine. The financial sector no longer supplies capital for production. What the financial sector does is to turn discretionary consumer income into interest and fee payments to banks. Aggregate demand can only grow through debt expansion, and the consumers reach a point where they cannot expand their debt.Domestic colonization.
Capitalism, hiding behind “globalism,” which is misrepresented as a good thing when it is death itself, locates production where labor is cheapest, thus depriving First World labor of good wages and work opportunities and putting First World countries on the path to becoming Third World countries. Short-term profits and executive and board bonuses and stock options are maximized at the cost of the destruction of the domestic consumer market.
What we are witnessing is the complete looting of America and the entirety of the West. While the Western World collapses, the insouciant, submissive people sit there sucking their thumbs while they are being ruined.
Nothing is left of the West except looters at work.Plunder Capitalism
Last night Chris Hayes ended "All In" with a discussion of the GOP Tax Plan. Economists David Cay Johnston and Stephanie Kelton agreed that if Republicans get their long-awaited wich and this budget-busting tax plan is enacted, the huge deficits it will create might not lead to the promised "growth" Steve Mnuchin insists will result.Stephanie Kelton explains how the GOP has set it up so they win even if they lose. They win if there is a big jump in growth, taxes pile in, and there is no increase of the deficit, hence, the debt (unlikely). They lose is there is a ballooning deficit and debt that voters perceive as a financial threat calling for increased taxes. But they also win since they can argue that taxes don't need to be raised but rather expenses cut, giving them a clear shot at Social Security and Medicare (likely).
What happens if Steve Mnuchin is wrong? Austerity budgets that cut into the heart of the biggest programs paid for out of the federal budget: Social Security and Medicare....
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan budget watchdog in Washington, on Friday called a Senate Republican tax plan a “fatally flawed budget buster,” likening it to Republican legislation in the House of Representatives that the House tax committee has approved....
The Tax Foundation, another nonpartisan group, said the Senate plan would add $1.78 trillion to the deficit over a decade. It estimated that over the same time frame lower taxes would expand the U.S. economy by 3.7 percent, add 925,000 full-time jobs, raise wages by 2.9 percent and generate enough new tax revenue to erase all but $516 billion of the deficit effect.…
Designing a tax plan that will actually increase spending and therefore employment is really not all that difficult. All you have to do is meet two criteria:
1. The tax cuts must not be offset by spending cuts (or tax increases elsewhere).
2. The tax cuts must increase the incomes of those who will actually spend the money....Forbes — Pragmatic Economics
The tax plan released by Republicans in Congress and praised by President Donald Trump is a remarkable document in many ways, but most notably in that it achieves the opposite of its stated goal. Presented as a tax cut for workers and job-creating entrepreneurs, it is instead a giant tax cut for the rich and inherited wealth.WCEG — The Equitablog
As the 2018 midterm congressional election campaigns grow nearer, the poll found that more than two-thirds of registered voters said reducing the U.S. federal budget deficit is more important than cutting taxes for the wealthy or for corporations.Deficit hysteria and debt phobia is popular in the US.
Trump’s plan would balloon the deficit and add to the $20 trillion national debt, according to critics and independent analysts, but Republicans say the tax cuts proposed in the plan would be offset by economic growth that would generate new tax revenue.
Among Republicans surveyed, 63 percent said deficit reduction should take priority over tax cuts for corporations, while 75 percent said deficit reduction should take priority over tax cuts for the wealthy.
The billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch spent much of the eight years of the Obama presidency stoking fears about the budget deficit. Their political network aired an unending cascade of campaign advertisements against Democratic politicians, sponsored several national bus tours, and paid organizers in communities across the country to mobilize public demonstrations, all focused on the dangers of increasing the deficit.
One such ad even warned that government debt would lead to a Chinese takeover of America — which, for many voters, is a concern linked to debt. Another effort, also quietly bankrolled by the Koch network, used Justin Bieber memes to try to reach millennials about too much government borrowing.
Now that Republicans control all levers of power in Washington and the Koch brothers are poised to reap a windfall of billions of dollars through tax cuts, they have a new message: Don’t worry about the deficit.
The Intercept obtained a messaging memo from the Koch brothers’ network on how to sell tax reform legislation. The memo went out to members of the network of likeminded Republican donors, which includes dozens of wealthy investors and business executives.
The talking points suggest that backers of the tax cuts feel vulnerable to the charge that the tax cuts will jack up the deficit.
“In case it is helpful to you in your own discussions with lawmakers and others,” the memo begins, “below is a list of talking points that address some of the key hurdles to passing tax reform this year.”
The memo goes on to encourage lawmakers to avoid becoming distracted by deficit concerns when passing the GOP tax reform package (emphasis added):Hypocrites.“Avoid getting distracted on revenue neutrality; economic growth increases revenues. Some Republican Senators have expressed concern over supporting comprehensive tax reform that adds to short-term deficits. Though we fully appreciate those concerns, the long-term economic growth that would result from the first comprehensive tax reform in a generation would help to offset short-term deficits over time. That was the result of the Kennedy and Reagan tax reforms—there’s no reason this time will be any different.”...
Passing FY 2018 Senate budget has "some eerie parallels" to health care, as no Democrats will vote for the budget; Sen. Rand Paul is expected to vote no because it doesn’t cut spending fast enough; Sen. John McCain also sounds like a no as it doesn’t repeal sequester, which disproportionately hits the Pentagon.
That means GOP can only afford one more defection, with Corker, a deficit hawk, engaging in "one of the more surreal public correspondence exchanges in recent memory" days after saying Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly help keep U.S. from chaos....
… if indeed Trump tax reform is dead - again - a sharp market turnaround may be imminent.
Not to be a downer, but I’ve have been pessimistic that DC R’s will learn from KS R’s. That’s partly because facts clearly can’t kill trickle-down mythology. The party’s donors want their tax cuts, and they’ll continue to sell snake oil to get them, facts and KS be damned.
But there’s another dynamic in play here which I haven’t seen mentioned: states have to balance their budgets while the federal government does not. So, if they’re willing to accept larger budget deficits, DC R’s can pass tax cuts and not worry about the consequences.
But R’s wouldn’t go that route because they disdain deficits and debt, right?On the Economy
