Tag: GOP supply side economics

How Democrats Can Make Trump Pay For His Tax Fraud

President Donald Trump is preparing to run for re-election by citing the strength of the American economy. But while most Americans do feel relatively at ease with the state of the economy, Trump’s major signature legislation that was supposed to trigger an economic boom — the 2017 tax cuts — is turning out to be a bust. And if Democrats want to undermine Trump’s message on the economy, they would be wise to focus on this massive failure.

Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act two years ago now, prompting reflection on how it measures up to the promises made.

Writing for  the Chicago Tribune, Steve Chapman recently declared the tax cuts “a mammoth fraud.” Continue reading

The Trump Tax Cuts Were A Mammoth Fraud

Decades from now, many Americans will have to consult history books to gain an appreciation of the lowest point of Donald Trump’s presidency: his impeachment. But they will be able to feel the effects of his highest point: the 2017 tax bill, which he signed into law two years ago Sunday. That’s because they will still be paying for it.

Trump and his party took great pride in enacting the biggest tax overhaul in a generation. “It’s going to be a tremendous thing for the American people,” the president exulted. But like most things he says, that claim was unfounded. The package turned out to be an extravagant mirage.

Americans thought they got a tax cut. What they really got was a tax increase that hasn’t yet taken effect. When you cut taxes but don’t cut spending to match, as the Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman often noted, you are not cutting taxes but merely delaying them. And total spending has not been reduced; it has been raised.

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Two years in, Trump tax cuts face big test with reelection bid

The Hill logoTwo years after President Trump signed his tax cut legislation into law, the measure has not become a runaway hit with the public, posing a potential challenge for his reelection bid as workers say they haven’t seen much of a benefit. 

Democrats believe that their calls to roll back the 2017 law and raise taxes on the wealthy will resonate with voters and help them win back the White House next year.

“We have to eliminate [a] significant number of these god-awful tax cuts that were given to the very wealthy,” former Vice President Joe Biden said during Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate.

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Trump’s ‘Reform’ Allows 91 Big Companies To Escape Any Federal Tax

A total of 91 of the largest companies in the United States paid zero dollars in federal income taxes in 2018 under the tax law passed by Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress.

A new analysis released by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) on Monday found that Fortune 500 companies were able to avoid at least $73.9 billion in taxes under the first year of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

ITEP’s analysis found that companies like Amazon, Chevron, Halliburton, and IBM, who do billions of dollars in sales, paid no federal income taxes. They also found that 56 companies paid an effective tax rate between 0 percent and 5 percent.

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America’s Ruinous Monopoly Of Wealth

I should start this homily on inequality by distinguishing income from wealth. Income is your annual wages or salary, as well as your earnings from a business, pension or government benefits such as Social Security, etc.

As the average U.S. worker’s real wages have stagnated for more than a decade, income disparity has become enormous. The bottom 90 percent of us average $30,000 a year, while the top 0.01 percent and 0.001 percent (about 1,400 taxpayers) rake in average annual incomes of $35.1 million and $152 million, respectively.

Meanwhile, even mediocre CEOs pocket many millions a year, and the greediest Wall Street hucksters annually amass more than $1 billion in booty. Until relatively recently, the ethical standard was for workers to gain a proportionate share of the income growth we generate. But in the last dozen years, the rich have been gobbling more and more of the total income pie, so the bottom half of Americans now get only 14 percent.

View the complete November 17 article by Jim Hightower on the National Memo website here.

Trump’s opportunity zones are supposed to help the poor. But billionaire GOP donors cashed in instead

A Trump tax break designed to help impoverished neighborhoods has lined the pockets of wealthy Republican donors. President Trump and congressional Republicans passed new tax legislation in 2017, introducing one provision in particular that was supposed to encourage business owners to invest in poor neighborhoods. Under the code, these communities are labeled opportunity zones, and if a developer builds anything in these zones, they receive a tax break. This reward is for new projects only.

At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Instead, it appears that former Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) bent the rules for a few of his wealthy friends, ProPublica reported Thursday. Scott, now a senator for the Sunshine State, designated the Rybovich superyacht marina an opportunity zone at the request of owner Wayne Huizenga Jr. Huizenga Jr. is the son of Wayne Huizenga Sr., the late billionaire co-owner of Blockbuster Video and founder of Waste Management.

View the complete November 14 article by Ashleigh Atwell on the Mic.com website here.

Two-Thirds of Americans Say Trump Has Not Helped Them Financially

Trump promised to put more money in people’s pocket. Instead, nearly two-thirds of Americans say they’re not better off financially. Meanwhile, manufacturing is in decline and the unemployment rate continues to increase in key states.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they’re not better off financially than they were when Trump was elected.

Financial Times: “Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they are not better off financially than they were when Donald Trump was elected, casting doubt on whether economic expansion and a record bull market will boost the president’s re-election campaign in 2020. According to a poll of likely voters conducted by the Financial Times and the Peter G Peterson Foundation, 31 percent of Americans say they are now worse off financially than they were at the start of Mr Trump’s presidency. Another 33 per cent say there has been no change in their financial position since Mr Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, while 35 per cent say they are better off.” Continue reading “Two-Thirds of Americans Say Trump Has Not Helped Them Financially”

Falling investment revives attacks against Trump’s tax cuts

The Hill logoThe GOP tax law passed in 2017 was supposed to super charge the economy, but the lack of major impact is spurring critics to renew their attacks against the signature measure from President Trump.

Republicans said the tax law would help the economy through several avenues, including by sending business investment soaring. But just 15 months after it took effect, business investment has actually been contracting, falling 1 percent and 3 percent in the past two quarters.

Republicans who supported the tax law are blaming Trump’s trade war with China as the reason why it failed to have the intended impact.

View the complete November 10 article by Niv Elis on The Hill website here.

Company insiders are selling stock during buyback programs and making additional profits when stock prices jump. And it’s legal.

Washington Post logoIn February 2017, the company behind the hit games Candy Crush and Call of Duty signaled optimism in its future and announced a $1 billion program to buy back its own shares — and investors responded by buying heavily.

But few of them could know that as they were buying, insiders at the mobile gaming titan Activision Blizzard were selling, and taking home additional profits as the stock price jumped.

On Feb. 10, a day after the company announced the buyback plan, Bobby Kotick, Activision’s chief executive, sold nearly 4 million shares for $180.8 million. The average share price of his sales was 15 percent higher than he would have gotten before the stock rose on the news.

View the complete November 6 article by Gary Putka on The Washington Post website here.

‘GOP Tax Scam 2.0’: Warnings as Trump pushes another round of tax cuts ahead of presidential election

AlterNet logoSparking warnings that the Republican Party is preparing another massive gift for the rich and corporations, the Washington Post reported Thursday that President Donald Trump is “agitating to announce a new tax cut proposal heading into the 2020 election.”

According to the Post, the tax cut discussions are being led by National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow, a “Wall Street cheerleader” and fervent believer in the discredited idea of trickle-down economics.

“The early-stage discussions reflect Trump’s desire to refocus the economic narrative amid some signs of a slowing economy,” the Post reported.

View the complete November 1 article by Jake Johnson from Common Dreams on the AlterNet website here.