Tag: GOP supply side economics

Experts: Trump Tax And Trade Policies Slowing Economy

Economic growth in the United States slowed to just 1.9 percent in the past three months, far slower than promised Donald Trump made during his 2016 campaign. The sluggish growth is even worse than the second-quarter numbers, when the economy grew at 2 percent, NPR reported on Wednesday.

In his annual budget to Congress, Trump predicted a more robust 3.2 percent growth.

“That’s not going to happen,” Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, told NPR, adding, “we won’t get a 3-plus percent growth rate for the year.”

View the complete October 31 article by Dan Desai Martin on the National Memo website here.

20 Very Rich Americans Demand Higher Taxes On Wealth

When the grand vacation homes of Newport Beach were empty on a beautiful Memorial Day weekend, Molly Munger decided it was time for the U.S. to consider taxing wealth.

As her family’s boat moved through the harbor a few years ago, Munger, whose father is a billionaire investor, saw that many of her neighbors’ houses were sitting dark and vacant. She knew why: The owners now controlled enough money to holiday at one of their several other luxury homes. It didn’t sit right, she said.

When the grand vacation homes of Newport Beach were empty on a beautiful Memorial Day weekend, Molly Munger decided it was time for the U.S. to consider taxing wealth.

View the complete October 27 article from the Associated Press on the National Memo website here.

Symbol of ’80s Greed Stands to Profit From Trump Tax Break for Poor Areas

New York Times logoRENO, Nev. — In the 1980s, Michael Milken embodied Wall Street greed. A swashbuckling financier, he was charged with playing a central role in a vast insider-trading scheme and was sent to prisonfor violating federal securities and tax laws. He was an inspiration for the Gordon Gekko character in the film “Wall Street.”

Mr. Milken has spent the intervening decades trying to rehabilitate his reputation through an influential nonprofit think tank, the Milken Institute, devoted to initiatives “that advance prosperity.”

These days, the Milken Institute is a leading proponent of a new federal tax break that was intended to coax wealthy investors to plow money into distressed communities known as “opportunity zones.” The institute’s leaders have helped push senior officials in the Trump administration to make the tax incentive more generous, even though it is under fire for being slanted toward the wealthy.

View the complete October 26 article by Eric Lipton and Jesse Drucker on The New York Times website here.

House Dems take aim at ‘trust fund babies’ with estate tax designed to combat obscene wealth inequality

AlterNet logoCalifornia Congressman Jimmy Gomez on Friday introduced legislation in the Democrat-controlled U.S. House that aims to address “our country’s rapidly increasing wealth inequality by strengthening the estate tax and ensuring the wealthiest among us pay their fair share.”

“Trust fund babies who have done nothing to earn their wealth besides being born into the right family have no right to pay a lower tax rate on their millions than hard-working Americans do on the income that they work for.”

—Charlie Simmons, Patriotic Millionaires

The For the 99.8% Act would impose a progressive tax on the estates of the richest Americans. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, introduced the companion bill in the Republican-controlled Senate in January.

View the complete October 26 article from Common Dreams on the AlterNet website here.

No, the economy isn’t working well for all Americans — and a new survey proves it

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump has not hesitated to boast about the state of the U.S. economy, insisting that his policies have brought about an economic miracle (never mind the fact that unemployment was going way down during President Barack Obama’s second term). But two of the Democratic presidential primary candidates who are hoping to unseat Trump in 2020, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders, have repeatedly stressed that big chunks of the U.S. population are not feeling the economic recovery — and a new survey by the personal finance website WalletHub bears that out.

The United States’ national unemployment rate, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) figures, was 3.7% in August and 3.5% in September. When Obama was a lame duck in December 2016, it was 4.7% compared to 10% in October 2009 during the worst of the Great Recession. So Trump inherited an economy that was in recovery under Obama; he didn’t create an economic miracle single-handedly, contrary to what one often hears on Fox News. Further, unemployment figures don’t tell the whole story, and WalletHub’s survey underscores the fact that millions of Americans are still struggling.

According to WalletHub’s survey, released this week, “78 million Americans” say their finances are a “horror show” — that includes 34% of Millennials and 16% of Baby Boomers. Moreover, 85% of Americans, WalletHub reports, plan on spending less this Halloween compared to Halloween 2018.

View the complete October 25 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You

New York Times logoAlmost a decade ago, Warren Buffett made a claim that would become famous. He said that he paid a lower tax rate than his secretary, thanks to the many loopholes and deductions that benefit the wealthy.

His claim sparked a debate about the fairness of the tax system. In the end, the expert consensus was that, whatever Buffett’s specific situation, most wealthy Americans did not actually pay a lower tax rate than the middle class. “Is it the norm?” the fact-checking outfit Politifact asked. “No.”

Time for an update: It’s the norm now.

For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans last year paid a lower total tax rate — spanning federal, state and local taxes — than any other income group, according to newly released data.

View the complete October 6 commentary by David Leonhardt on The New York Times website here.

Trump’s Corporate Tax Cut Is Not Trickling Down

Center for American Progress logoTwo years ago, President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent via the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA). At the time, the Trump administration claimed that its corporate tax cuts would increase the average household income in the United States by $4,000. But two years later, there is little indication that the tax cut is even beginning to trickle down in the ways its proponents claimed.

The Trump administration claimed its corporate tax cuts would translate into a $4,000 raise for the average household

In selling the large corporate tax cut to Congress and a skeptical American public, the Trump administration claimed that corporate tax cuts would ultimately translate into higher wages for workers. The tax cuts would trickle down to workers through a multistep process. First, slashing the corporate tax rate would increase corporations’ after-tax returns on investment, inducing them to massively boost spending on investments such as factories, equipment, and research and development. This investment boom would give the average worker more and better capital to work with, substantially increasing the overall productivity of U.S. workers. In other words, they would be able to produce more goods and services with every hour worked. And finally, U.S. workers would capture the benefits of their increased productivity by successfully bargaining for higher wages. Continue reading “Trump’s Corporate Tax Cut Is Not Trickling Down”

Census: US inequality grew, including in heartland states

ORLANDO, Fla. — The gap between the haves and have-nots in the United States grew last year to its highest level in more than 50 years of tracking income inequality, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released Thursday.

Income inequality in the United States expanded from 2017 to 2018, with several heartland states among the leaders of the increase, even though several wealthy coastal states still had the most inequality overall, according to the figures.

The nation’s Gini Index, which measures income inequality, has been rising steadily over the past five decades.

View the complete September 26 article by Mike Schneider from the Associated Press on The StarTribune website here.