Tag: Trump wealthcare

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.

GDP Is Growing, but Workers’ Wages Aren’t

The following article by Michael Madowitz and Set Hanlon was posted on the Center for American Progress website July 26, 2018:

People exit a subway into a shopping mall on June 28, 2018, in New York City. Credit: Getty/Spencer Platt

President Donald Trump recently said that the U.S. economy is “stronger than ever before” and points to his tax plan as one of the major reasons why.1 But the fact is that workers are not getting ahead in the Trump economy. Official data released in recent weeks have shown that workers’ wages are flat or even slightly down, in real terms, over the last year.2 These data fly in the face of many tax plan boosters who have claimed that the bill’s passage has already been a boon to middle-class workers.

This Friday, the U.S. Department of Commerce will release its first estimate of the nation’s economic output in the second quarter of 2018. For a number of reasons, second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth is expected to be relatively strong. But one quarter’s GDP estimates hardly indicate that the economy is experiencing the sustained, broad-based growth that tax cut proponents promised would happen. Indeed, as the wage data show, the economy’s gains have not trickled down to regular workers. In fact, President Trump’s policies have only made it harder for them to get ahead.

Workers’ real wages have been entirely flat over the last year

GDP growth is the biggest-picture view of the economy; it’s important for macroeconomists who focus on long-term shifts in what the U.S. economy produces. GDP, however, is only one measure of economic progress, so its effectiveness at measuring workers’ well-being is limited. In the modern economy, benefits are shared unequally. As economic benefits have gone increasingly to those at the top, overall economic growth tells us less than it once did about how the living standards of all Americans are changing. To be sure, economic growth is an important goal, but it’s naïve to ignore the growing disconnect between changes in economic output and living standards for the vast majority of workers—especially when there are much more applicable measures of how workers are faring.

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.

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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.

Trump Wants A New $100 Billion Tax Cut For The Wealthiest Americans, Not Workers

First, Trump and Republicans passed the Trump tax law, which gives most of the benefits to millionaires and billionaires. Now, Trump wants yet another tax cut that would also give most of the benefits to the millionaires and billionaires. Meanwhile, real wages for workers have declined.

Round 1: Trump and Republicans passed a $1.5 trillion tax cut that gives more than 80% of the benefits to the top 1% by the end of the decade.

The Hill: “Congress’s official scorekeeper, the Joint Committee on Taxation, estimated that the bill would cost about $1.46 trillion over 10 years before factoring in economic growth.”

Vox: “By 2027, more than half of all Americans — 53 percent — would pay more in taxes under the tax bill agreed to by House and Senate Republicans, a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center finds. That year, 82.8 percent of the bill’s benefit would go to the top 1 percent, up from 62.1 under the Senate bill.”

Round 2: Trump wants to bypass Congress to grant a new $100 billion tax break for investors that would give more than 80 percent of the benefits to the top 1%.

New York Times: “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.”

Penn Wharton: “Because income from capital gains is concentrated among high-income households, the benefits of this change would accrue primarily to the upper end of the income distribution. Table 1 shows that the top one percent of tax units would receive more than 86 percent of the tax cut, and that after tax-incomes would increase most for the top 0.1 percent.”

 

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”

Trump And Republicans Help CEOs & Leave Everyone Else Behind

The Trump and Republican economic agenda has increased the gap between CEOs and everyone else. CEO have benefitted with tens of billions of dollars, while workers’ wages have not increased. See for yourself:

CEOs of the U.S.’s biggest corporations took home $10 billion last year.

Axios: “The CEOs running S&P 500 companies cumulatively took home $10 billion in 2017, an amount that is 44% higher than what is usually reported, according to an Axios analysis of Securities and Exchange Commission filings.” Continue reading “Trump And Republicans Help CEOs & Leave Everyone Else Behind”