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Trump/GOP $1,500,000,000,000 Tax Scam Had No Major Impact on Hiring But Made GOP Congress Rich
Near the end of 2017, Republicans scammed the county with a tax heist for the richest individuals and corporations. Not only did they drastically cut their taxes, they increased those in the middle class. And as has always been the case because 'trickle-down economics' is a debunked made-up concept, they pocketed the hundreds of billions of dollars.
The White House had predicted that the massive fiscal stimulus package, marked by the reduction in the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent, would boost business spending and job growth. The tax cuts came into effect in January 2018.
The National Association of Business Economics' quarterly business conditions poll found that.... 84 percent of respondents said they had not changed plans. "A large majority of respondents, 84 percent, indicate that one year after its passage, the corporate tax reform has not caused their firms to change hiring or investment plans," said NABE President Kevin Swift.
The NABE survey also suggested a further slowdown in business spending after moderating sharply in the third quarter of 2018. The survey's measure of capital spending fell in January to its lowest level since July 2017. Expectations for capital spending for the next three months also weakened.
"Massive fiscal stimulus package"? Is that what it's called when you hand endless sums of money to the richest people and corporations who hoard it all? Unreal.
In the lead-up to the enactment of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, Trump’s massive tax cut that mostly benefited rich people and big corporations, a coalition of powerful business interests formed with one major priority in mind: slashing the corporate tax rate. The Reforming America’s Taxes Equitably (RATE) Coalition comprised dozens of companies and trade groups that all insisted lowering corporate taxes would mean more jobs.
....half of RATE Coalition’s members have made layoffs since the law’s enactment. In other words, not only did the expensive tax cut not bring more jobs, it couldn’t even forestall significant job losses. Corporate coffers swelled and shareholders reaped the benefits. Yet even with this windfall, layoffs followed at many of the RATE Coalition member companies.
RATE's membership list was a who’s who of Big Business: Aetna Inc., AT&T, Altria Client Services, Association of American Railroads, Boeing, Brown-Forman, Capital One, Cox Enterprises, CVS Caremark, Edison Electric Institute, FedEx, Ford, General Dynamics, Home Depot, Intel, Kimberly-Clark, Liberty Media, Lockheed Martin, Macy’s, National Retail Federation, Nike, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Reynolds American, S&P Global, Southern Company, Synchrony Financial, T-Mobile, UPS, Verizon, Viacom, and Walmart.
In just the second quarter of 2017 alone, their combined corporate lobbying on taxes and other issues exceeded $48 million.
This seems a bit fishy; you might say it seems like a scam. You'd be right. They PAID Republicans for their massive tax cuts then pocketed most of it.
The evidence shows that big donors, collectively, acted to leverage their clout to help push through the tax cut law that would enrich the kinds of corporations, limited partnerships, real estate holdings and huge investments that many of them own
From the time the tax bill was first introduced on Nov. 2, 2017, until the end of the year, a 60-day period, dozens of billionaires and millionaires dramatically boosted their political contributions unlike they had in past years, giving a total of $31.1 million in that two months....
.... 144 wealthy donors, some household names and some behind-the-scenes, contributed at least $50,000 to Republicans and conservative groups in that time frame. For 87 of those, the surge of giving at year’s end reflected a marked change in their giving behavior.
.... 25 wealthy donors gave all their 2017 money in the final two months of the year, the first time they did so during the previous four off-election years—2009, 2011, 2013, 2015
Shocker. This is the swamp.
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