Tag: Reaganomics

Multi-Millionaire Steve Mnuchin Takes Care Of His Own

The following article by David Cay Johnston was posted on the DCReport.org website July 31, 2018:

Treasury Secretary Plans Another Tax Giveaway for the One Percent

The swamp monster who Donald Trump chose as Treasury secretary has a plan to save the richest of the rich billions and billions in taxes – and without any vote by Congress, either.

Steve Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachser and later California banker who grew rich exploiting the housing crisis, revealed the plan to The New York Times while in Argentina for the G-20 meeting of the world’s richest countries.

The plan would radically increase the concentration of wealth in America, accelerating a trend that will be explained below with some shocking numbers. And it comes as the Trump administration, reneging on campaign promises, is floating proposals to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security as well as using subtle means to scuttle the Affordable Care Act.

View the complete article here.

GOP’s tax scam gives millionaire CEOs a huge Trump Bump in pay

The following article by Oliver Willis was posted on the ShareBlue.com website July 30, 2018:

Ultra-rich CEOs are raking in even more millions of dollars, thanks to the GOP’s tax scam.

Credit: Evan Vucci, AP

The Republican tax scam, passed with only GOP votes and Trump’s signature, has led to a massive Trump Bump in pay for multi-millionaire CEOs while average Americans have been left out to dry.

In a review of SEC filings since the passage of the GOP tax scam, Politico found that executives “have been profiting handsomely by selling shares since Trump signed the law on Dec. 22 and slashed corporate tax rates to 21 percent.”

Further, according to Politico, public companies have announced $600 billion in buybacks this year alone, and approximately 28 percent of S&P 500 companies have announced plans to offer buybacks to shareholders.

View the complete article here.

Trump Administration Mulls a Unilateral Tax Cut for the Rich Image

The following article by Alan Rappeport and Jim Tankersley was posted on the New York Timeswebsite July 30, 2018:

Credit: Doug Mills The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering bypassing Congress to grant a $100 billion tax cut mainly to the wealthy, a legally tenuous maneuver that would cut capital gains taxation and fulfill a long-held ambition of many investors and conservatives.

Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said in an interview on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit meeting in Argentina this month that his department was studying whether it could use its regulatory powers to allow Americans to account for inflation in determining capital gains tax liabilities. The Treasury Department could change the definition of “cost” for calculating capital gains, allowing taxpayers to adjust the initial value of an asset, such as a home or a share of stock, for inflation when it sells.

“If it can’t get done through a legislation process, we will look at what tools at Treasury we have to do it on our own and we’ll consider that,” Mr. Mnuchin said, emphasizing that he had not concluded whether the Treasury Department had the authority to act alone. “We are studying that internally, and we are also studying the economic costs and the impact on growth.”

View the complete article here.

Republicans Are Doubling Down on Their Failed Tax Cuts

The following article by Leo Gerard of the Independent Media Institute was posted on the AlterNet website July 27, 2018:

Credit: USGovernmentDebt.us

Up is down. Would is wouldn’t. “What you are seeing and what you are reading is not what’s happening.” And a new round of GOP tax cuts, proposed this week, definitely will not result in damage to Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security!

Definitely.

Republicans live in an Alice-in-Wonderland World where they can pass $1.5 trillion in tax cuts that won’t cost anything. They’ll pay for themselves! Just like a worker’s mortgage does every month. Just pays for itself! And then the GOP can propose another $1 trillion in tax cuts that also won’t cost anything! They certainly won’t increase the federal deficit!

View the complete article here.

When Paul Ryan leaves government, the federal deficit will be $1.2 trillion higher than when he arrived

The following article of Philip Bump was posted on the Washington Post website July 25, 2018:

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) made a name for himself as a deficit hawk, but backed a tax plan and a spending bill that are ballooning the national debt. (Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo: Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

One fun thing about the Nexis online news archive at Nexis is that you can search for how many times certain people have been described in certain ways in news reports. For example, one can learn that, since June 2008, Paul Ryan has been called a “deficit hawk” more than 400 times in English-language news reports. The first included in the index is an article from Roll Call titled, “Ryan Campaigns for Fiscal Fitness” — sadly written before Time magazine snapped some of the most iconic imagesof any legislator in history.

The House speaker is a deficit hawk, you see, because of his long-standing crusade for lower federal budget deficits. It has been the cause with which the Wisconsin Republican has been associated for most of his career since getting to Capitol Hill in 1999 — cutting spending and bringing the budget under control.

However, Bloomberg’s Steven Dennis made an interesting observation about Ryan’s tenure on Twitter.

View the complete article here.

How the Trump Tax Cut Is Helping to Push the Federal Deficit to $1 Trillion

The following article by Jim Tankersley was posted on the New York Times website July 25, 2018:

The amount of corporate taxes collected by the federal government has plunged to historically low levels in the first six months of the year, pushing up the federal budget deficit much faster than economists had predicted.

The reason is President Trump’s tax cuts. The law introduced a standard corporate rate of 21 percent, down from a high of 35 percent, and allowed companies to immediately deduct many new investments. As companies operate with lower taxes and a greater ability to reduce what they owe, the federal government is receiving far less than it would have before the overhaul.

 

The Trump administration had said that the tax cuts would pay for themselves by generating increased revenue from faster economic growth, but the White House has acknowledged in recent weeks that the deficit is growing faster than it had expected. The Office of Management and Budget said this month that it had revised its forecasts from earlier this year to account for nearly $1 trillion of additional debt over the next decade — on average, almost $100 billion more a year in deficits.

View the complete post here.

11 Ways the Wealthy and Corporations Will Game the New Tax Law

The following article by Alexandra Thornton was posted on the Center for American Progress website July 25, 2018:

Introduction and summary

At the end of 2017, congressional Republicans drafted a new tax bill and rushed it to President Donald Trump for signature in just seven weeks. No congressional Democrats were permitted in the drafting sessions, and no hearings were held after the draft legislation was released.1 As a result, no other members of Congress and no members of the public whom the bill’s sweeping provisions would affect had adequate opportunity to review the proposed changes and identify potential problems—much less offer suggestions for how to improve the bill. To the surprise of no one in Washington, the final law that emerged from this secret and partisan process overwhelmingly benefits the wealthy and large corporations. The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) and the Tax Policy Center—both nonpartisan organizations—have confirmed this fact.2

Provisions of the new tax law, informally known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), that directly benefit the wealthy and corporations include: lowering the top individual income tax rate to 37 percent; weakening the individual alternative minimum tax, which originally was designed to ensure that the wealthy pay a minimum amount of tax; gutting the estate tax; allowing a giveaway to wealthy pass-through business owners; and slashing the statutory corporate tax rate.

View the complete article here.

 

Republicans Go For Broke on Tax Cut Message With 2.0 Effort

The following article by Lindsey McPherson was posted n the Roll Call website July 24, 2018:

Making individual tax cuts permanent is centerpiece of developing 3-bill package

House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, briefed House Republicans Tuesday on his panel’s developing “Tax Reform 2.0” plan. Credit: Tom Williams, CQ Roll Call fie photo

House Republicans have made clear that the tax overhaul bill their party passed last year is their primary selling point to voters on why they should keep them in the majority come November.

Now they’re doubling down on the tax cut message as they prepare a three-bill package they’re calling “Tax Reform 2.0.”

The Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday released a two-page outline of the 2.0 plan, which they plan to introduce as legislation after the House returns from its late summer recess in September. The goal is for floor votes on the three bills this fall before the House adjourns again for the midterm elections.

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GOP lied about their tax scam, and now American wages are falling

The following article by Dan Desai Martin was posted on the ShareBlue.com website July 23, 2018:

Trump and his GOP promised their tax scam would help middle-class workers, but wages are actually down and the only ones benefitting are the ultra-rich.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP Photos

Republicans sold their tax scam as a way to help the middle class, but seven months after Trump signed the bill into law, Americans have seen months of declining wages. In reality, the tax scam is a $2 trillion, deficit-financed boondoggle to benefit wealthy Wall Street corporations while workers languish.

Trump vowed the tax scam would be “rocket fuel” for the economy. Congressional Republicans made over-the-top promises about higher wages and a booming economy.

But that hasn’t happened. The tax scam has not led to higher wages. Instead, as finance expert Noah Smith explains in Bloomberg, “Real average hourly compensation actually fell in the first quarter” after the tax scam was passed.

View the complete article here.

CEOs Get Massive Payouts As Workers Shoulder Larger Share Of Federal Tax Burden

CEOs are some of the biggest winners from the Trump tax law, not workers. Corporations received massive new tax cuts, which CEOs have used to further enrich themselves. Meanwhile, workers’ wages have not increased and workers are having to  shoulder a rising share of the federal tax burden.

CEOs have used the Trump tax law to further enrich themselves with “eye-popping” payouts. Meanwhile, workers aren’t benefiting.

Politico: “‘Eye-popping’ payouts for CEOs follow Trump’s tax cuts”

Politico: “Some of the biggest winners from President Donald Trump’s new tax law are corporate executives who have reaped gains as their companies buy back a record amount of stock, a practice that rewards shareholders by boosting the value of existing shares.” Continue reading “CEOs Get Massive Payouts As Workers Shoulder Larger Share Of Federal Tax Burden”