Tag: Reaganomics

Forget about broad-based pay hikes, executives say

The following article by Steve LeVine was posted on the Axios website May 27, 2018:

Credit: Woodcock88 via Morguefile.com

Very few Americans have enjoyed steadily rising pay beyond inflation over the last couple of decades, a shift from prior years in which the working and middle classes enjoyed broad-based wage gains as the economy expanded.

Why it matters: Now, executives of big U.S. companies suggest that the days of most people getting a pay raise are over, and that they also plan to reduce their work forces further. Continue reading “Forget about broad-based pay hikes, executives say”

Jelly Bellies and big spending: Inside the GOP struggle to sell voters on its tax law

The following article by Erica Werner was posted on the Washington Post website May 10, 2018:

House Speaker Ryan, right, listens to House Majority Leader McCarthy, left. Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Republican leaders and campaign officials are scrambling to do more to sell voters on their signature legislative achievement — a $1.5 trillion tax cut — amid poor polling numbers, rank-and-file members who lack a consistent message and a president who refuses to focus on the issue.

President Trump, when given the chance to tout his party’s tax law, has repeatedly gone off topic, including on Saturday when he traveled to Cleveland for a tax roundtable. While other speakers sang the law’s praises, Trump mixed in remarks on China, North Korea, Syria, immigration, the mayor of Oakland, Calif., Congress’s budget deal, his own poll numbers and the media’s coverage of his presidency. Continue reading “Jelly Bellies and big spending: Inside the GOP struggle to sell voters on its tax law”

Marco Rubio just went way off message on the GOP tax cuts — and conservatives are furious

The following article by Jeff Stein was posted on the Washington Post website May 1, 2018:

Sen. Marco Rubio when he was a presidential candidate. Credit: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Democrats frequently claim Republicans’ corporate tax cuts enriched big businesses while doing little for workers, but now that line of criticism is coming from a prominent Republican: Sen. Marco Rubio.

“There is still a lot of thinking on the right that if big corporations are happy, they’re going to take the money they’re saving and reinvest it in American workers,” the Florida senator told the Economist in a recent interview. “In fact they bought back shares, a few gave out bonuses; there’s no evidence whatsoever that the money’s been massively poured back into the American worker.” Continue reading “Marco Rubio just went way off message on the GOP tax cuts — and conservatives are furious”

Investment Boom From Trump’s Tax Cut Has Yet to Appear Image

The following article by Matt Phillips and Jim Tankersley was posted on the New York Times website April 30, 2018:

President Trump’s tax cuts have not yet translated into expanded investment by companies like Caterpillar, which provided a front-end loader for Made in America Day last year. Credit: Tom Brenner/The New York Times

After years of costly layoffs and plant closings, things are looking up for the heavy-machinery giant Caterpillar, which forecasts solid global sales growth and increased demand this year. Yet despite the corporate investment incentives at the center of President Trump’s tax overhaul, the company’s executives have no plans to supercharge investment or expansion.

Caterpillar’s plans for new investment remain low by historical standards. Instead, the company has started using cash to repurchase its own stock as a way to return cash to shareholders, something it hadn’t done since 2015. Continue reading “Investment Boom From Trump’s Tax Cut Has Yet to Appear Image”

GOP’s pathetic new pitch to voters: Cut Social Security and Medicare

The following article by Oliver Willis was posted on the ShareBlue.com website April 25, 2018:

Republicans in Congress are pushing plans for their most unpopular ideas, even as the party faces major challenges in upcoming elections.

Congressional Republicans have released an election year proposal targeting massive cuts to government programs that millions of Americans, including the poorest people, have relied upon. Continue reading “GOP’s pathetic new pitch to voters: Cut Social Security and Medicare”

What Trump doesn’t say about his own tax plan

The following article by David Cay Johnston was posed on the Salon.com website April 20, 2018:

The Republicans didn’t reform the tax system — they blew it up

McConnell-Trump-Ryan

In a Tax Day essay under the byline of Donald Trump, the USA Today newspaper has allowed the 45th president to tell an utterly misleading story about the tax “reform” law he signed into law in December. The calculated deceptions in this piece matter a lot because the front page of that same newspaper declares “Exclusive: GOP banks on tax cuts to keep  majority in Congress.”

So, let’s examine what someone wrote for Trump as he campaigns for a second term and a Congress controlled by Republicans who will not hold him accountable for anything. Continue reading “What Trump doesn’t say about his own tax plan”

Americans to Republicans: Your tax bill scam is terrible

The following article by Dan Desai Martin was posted on the ShareBlue.com website April 17, 2018:

A new Gallup poll shows the Republican tax bill scam is wildly unpopular.

Credit: Evan Vucci, AP

The tax scam championed by Republicans is doing exactly what critics warned: showering the wealthy with deficit-financed tax breaks, while leaving workers and the American middle class behind. The latest Gallup poll confirms, once again, a majority of Americans disapprove of the GOP tax bill.

It makes sense that Americans continue to hold a negative view of the bill. For one, the overwhelming majority of the benefits are going to the already wealthy. In 2018, the richest 1 percent will see a tax break of more than $50,000, or almost $1,000 per week. The poorest 20 percent will see a mere $60 spread out over the course of the entire year, slightly more than $1 per week. Continue reading “Americans to Republicans: Your tax bill scam is terrible”

Poll: Distrust Over Trump And Tax Cuts Driving Democratic Midterm Wave

The following article by Joe Conason was posted on the National Memo website April 13, 2018:

Donald Trump meets with Speaker Paul Ryan on Capitol Hill. Credit: REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

For Republicans, disaster seems to dominate every news cycle: Paul Ryan, the House Speaker and one of his party’s most prolific fundraisers, announces that he will not run for reelection (and the leading would-be GOP nominee in his district is an actual Nazi). Ryan’s retirement is only the latest of at least 40 Republican members who are doing likewise. Nonpartisan analysts continue to increase the odds in blue turnovers in usually safe red districts. The historically unpopular president has instigated a trade war that is alienating his own rural base.

And the tax cut that was expected to serve as the centerpiece of the Republican midterm campaign? A new poll from Democracy Corps and the American Federation of Teachers shows that in House battleground districts, relatively few people believe the benefits were distributed fairly or that the tax cut benefits them and their families — indeed, the more they learn, the more voters are motivated to vote for Democrats. Continue reading “Poll: Distrust Over Trump And Tax Cuts Driving Democratic Midterm Wave”

Deficit to top $1 trillion per year by 2020, CBO says

The following article by Jeff Stein was posted on the Washington Post website April 9, 2018:

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) returns to his office. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)

America’s deficit is rising sharply and will surpass $1 trillion per year by 2020, a gap that has grown since Congress cut taxes and increased spending, the Congressional Budget Office reported Monday.

The federal deficit — the gap between how much the government takes in and how much it spends — will hit $804 billion in fiscal 2018, up 21 percent from 2017, the CBO said. Continue reading “Deficit to top $1 trillion per year by 2020, CBO says”

Three months into the tax cuts, significant wage gains seem elusive

The following article by Philip Bump was posted on the Washington Post website April 6, 2018:

February’s blockbuster jobs report — a huge gain in employment and drops in the unemployment rate among key groups — was not matched by the March number released Friday morning. The economy added 103,000 jobs last month, according to preliminary estimates, and the number of jobs created in January and February was adjusted downward by 50,000 (down 63,000 in January and up 13,000 in February).

Continue reading “Three months into the tax cuts, significant wage gains seem elusive”