Tag: Reaganomics

‘Trumponomics has utterly failed’: Paul Krugman details why the GOP’s economic worldview has collapsed

AlterNet logoIt’s often taken for granted that, whatever else you might say about President Donald Trump, he has at least been good for the U.S. economy. That, many argue, is the fact that may lead to his re-election in 2020.

Except this uncritically accepted pearl of conventional wisdom is quite dubious, as many experts in economics would tell you.

One of those experts, Trump-appointed Fed Chair Jerome Powell, even announced a cut to interest rates this week in light of weak business investment in the economy and the uncertainty caused by the president’s trade wars.

Another expert is economist Paul Krugman, who wrote in a new piece for the New York Times Thursday: “Obviously Powell couldn’t say in so many words that Trumponomics has been a big flop, but that was the subtext of his remarks. And Trump’s frantic efforts to bully the Fed into bigger cuts are an implicit admission of the same thing.”

View the complete August 2 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

DFL Statement on the Anniversary of the GOP’s Senate Health Care Vote

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – Two years ago today, the Senate rejected Trump’s health care bill that would have spiked costs and jeopardized coverage for Minnesotans with preexisting conditions. Ken Martin, Chairman of the Minnesota DFL, issued the following statement:

“Donald Trump’s relentless effort to strip Minnesotans of their health care and spike their costs is not only irresponsible, it’s cruel. Their efforts haven’t stopped either: after failing to get their way in Congress, Trump and his allies are trying to use the courts to continue their sabotage of our health care system.

“Democrats are working to defend and expand Americans’ access to health care. We know that it’s unacceptable for families to be forced to choose between food on the table and having access to the health care they need. The contrast between the parties on this issue is crystal clear and voters will hold Trump and the GOP accountable in 2020.”

Taking Stock of Spending Through the Tax Code

Center for American Progress logoTax Expenditures Are Skewed to the Wealthy Even After TCJA

Overview

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which gave the largest tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, also failed to address the inefficiency, lack of fairness, and cost of many spending programs administered through the tax code.

Introduction and summary

Government spending through the tax code has flourished in the years since the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which significantly reduced the cost of a large number of tax breaks. In 2019, the federal government will spend roughly $1.6 trillion through special provisions of the tax code, called tax expenditures,1 up from an inflation-adjusted $600 billion in 1988—more than a trillion-dollar difference.2 Yet, as detailed later in this report, tax expenditures receive little direct oversight in the budget process, and many are poorly targeted to the goals they claim to achieve. As a result, the tax code contains many tax expenditures that do not achieve their stated claims, are unfairly skewed in favor of higher-income taxpayers, or both.

This report will review the status of individual tax expenditure policy in the aftermath of the December 2017 tax law, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). After providing a brief review of the theory around tax expenditures, it will use specific examples to explain how the structure of individual income tax expenditures, as amended by the TCJA, affects their cost and who benefits, as well as how some tax expenditures are ineffective, with their underlying goals best not pursued through the tax code at all.

View the complete July 25 article by Alexandra Thornton and Sara Estep on the Center for American Progress website here.

Republican lawmakers who backed Trump’s tax cuts now freak out over bipartisan spending deal

The bipartisan congressional leadership and White House reached a two-year budget deal on Monday, seemingly averting another government shutdown and preventing a default on the national debt that has grown to an all-time high under President Donald Trump.

But despite previously backing the 2017 tax cuts for the rich that have helped fuel the largest monthly budget deficits in American history, several self-styled deficit hawks in Congress are now signaling their opposition based on claims of fiscal conservationism.

The deal — which Trump praised on Twitter as “a real compromise in order to give another big victory to our Great Military and Vets!” — will provide more than $1.3 trillion for agency spending for each of the next two years and suspend the nation’s debt limit until after the election. This will prevent the government from defaulting on its debt payments for the first time in history and avert some of the spending cuts agreed to in the 2011 Budget Control Act.

View the complete July 23 article by Josh Israel on the ThinkProgress website here.

New Data Show Costly Trump Tax Cut Achieved Little

The most commonly heard refrain when Donald Trump and the GOP were seeking to pass some version of corporate tax reform went something like this: There are literally trillions of dollars trapped in offshore dollar deposits which, because of America’s uncompetitive tax rates, cannot be brought back home. Cut the corporate tax rate and get those dollars repatriated, thereby unleashing a flood of new job-creating investment in the process. Or so the pitch went.

It’s not new and has never really stood up to scrutiny. Yet virtually every single figure who lobbied for corporate tax reform has made a version of this argument. In the past, Congress couldn’t or wouldn’t take up the cause, but, desperate for a political win after the loss on health care, Trump and the GOP leadership ran with a recycled version of this argument, and Congress finally passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on December 22, 2017. The headline feature was a cut in the official corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. Continue reading “New Data Show Costly Trump Tax Cut Achieved Little”

How The Super Rich Avoid Paying Taxes … And What We Can Do About It

Part 5: There’s a Simple Way to Force the 1% to Pay Up and Make the Tax System Fairer to Everyone

Our investigative series The Koch Papers illustrates many deep problems in America’s creaky, century-old income tax system, especially how our Congress has through favors to donors has transformed it into has two tax systems, separate and unequal.

These dual systems pose a threat to our nation’s social stability, to our national security and to America remaining a nation of equality under law. But there is a simple solution to this, as we shall see. It requires only that Congress stand up for honest and fair tax law enforcement, not the interests of those major campaign donors who cheat.

One of the most significant lessons applies to William Ingraham Koch and his company whether or not, as his former chief tax executive claims, the IRS failed to curb massive income tax cheating. That’s because if Koch did find a way to lawfully collect more than $100 million in tax-free profits annually it is just as much a public issue as if he did it by cheating.

View the complete July 12 article by David Cay Johnston on the DC Report website here.

How To Fix A Big Problem With The Trump-Radical Republican Tax Law

The American people got a highly misleading June 24 report from Congressional staff about the effect of repealing Donald Trump’s $10,000 limit on state and local tax deductions, known as SALT.

Millionaires and billionaires get most of the benefits if the limitation is repealed, the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation reported.

Duh.

Our major news organizations promptly parroted the findings without digging deeper. And none thought to report on whether the tax committee staff had been asked the right or best question in preparing its analysis.

View the complete July 4 article by David Cay Johnston on the DC Report website here.

What We Could Have Had for $1.9 Trillion

Center for American Progress logoThroughout his campaign and since taking office, President Donald Trump has promised to stand up for working people and families. But the most far-reaching bill he’s signed into law—the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017—was a handout for corporate America and the wealthy at the expense of working- and middle-class families. President Trump’s tax handout is estimated to cost $1.9 trillion between 2018 and 2027, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). As a result of the law, large corporations are receiving a massive tax cut—even bigger than what was originally expected. And while the law is running up federal deficits, it is having little or no positive effect on the U.S. economy, according to new research from the Congressional Research Service.

Working- and middle-class families deserve better. In fact, for the same $1.9 trillion cost of President Trump’s tax giveaway, the United States could afford to completely eliminate child poverty; double its federal investment in climate science; extend universal access to affordable child care and pre-K; provide a $10,000 raise for teachers in high-poverty schools; provide free community college; and take dramatic action to tackle the opioid epidemic. (see Methodology) Continue reading “What We Could Have Had for $1.9 Trillion”

Worker Bonuses Fell Sharply As Corporations Reaped Tax-Cut Billions

After a flurry of press releases last year touting all the bonuses that would come when Republicans passed their tax scam, it turns out corporations scaled back on worker bonuses in 2019, and drastically. But they’re still reaping the benefits of the GOP tax scam, according to a Tuesday Wall Street Journal report.

Compared to this time last year, worker bonuses have dropped by a stunning 24 percent, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The drop is the largest decrease on record, dating back to 2005.

Since the tax scam was signed into law in December 2017, Trump and Republicans have highlighted anecdotal evidence from corporate press releases to promote its greatness. In January 2018, for example, the Trump administration praised Walmart for giving out bonuses, even as the company was closing more than 60 stores.

View the complete June 19 article by Dan Desai Martin on the National Memo website here.

Trump administration tightens restrictions on fetal tissue research

After Trump recently called his economy “the best ever,” MSNBC’s Morgan Radford spoke with a group of truckers who disagreed.

MSNBC spoke to a group of trucker drivers this week who say that President Donald Trump hasn’t kept his campaign promises.

>After Trump recently called his economy “the best ever,” MSNBC’s Morgan Radford spoke with a group of truckers who disagreed. Several of the truckers were Trump voters who don’t expect to vote for the president again.

“Do you feel like this administration is listening to you as truckers?” Radford asked.

“No, ma’am,” one trucker replied.

View the complete June 5 article by David Edwards of Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.