The Republicans in the Senate just pulled out the credit card and charged one of the biggest tax cuts in our history.
At a time of record unemployment, record stock market gains, and big business booming it is hard to justify the need for a tax cut.
One point four trillion dollars ($1,400,000,000,000) will now be added to our already massive debt; and maybe it is worth it. Now we can repair our road system and bridges, modernize our national power grid, construct a high-speed rail system connecting the east coast and west coast, create millions of high paying jobs, make Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security solvent into the distant future.
But that is not what is happening.
The Republican tax bill gives huge tax breaks to multi-national companies that are already raking in record profits. It cuts taxes on multi-millionaires and billionaires (and if you don’t believe Trump stands to make hundreds of millions from this tax cut, I have some swamp land in Florida I will sell you.) This is one of the largest giveaways to the mega-wealthy since Reagan.
This tax bill, also makes massive cuts to education – including student loans, cuts to health care that will leave millions uninsured, cuts to hospitals and emergency services, and cuts across the board to social programs.
In two to three years, claiming to be the party of fiscal responsibility, the Republicans will cry the that the national debt is unsustainable, and they will demand cuts in Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security to bring down the deficit.
Hard working middle class people that voted Republican, as well as the rest of us, now must pay the price.
Republican voters have been duped by the Republican shell game and allowed to find the marble with God, guns, gays and abortion under the obvious paper cup; now the bait and switch has been accomplished and rubes must pay the huckster.
It is time to remove the emerald glasses and realize the man behind the curtain has just pulled the leaver on you; and vote out the Republicans in the 2018 election.
William Gilliland
Farmington
Bill… relax… it is not good for you to be so upset..
Bill,
You should take Glen’s advice and relax. It’s not sooooo bad yet. It is only 1.4 trillion added to our national
debt, maybe?. President Trump has another $8.6 trillion to add to match the $10 trillion that Obama added
to the national debt in his eight years. :0). If Trump follows the trend set by the last two administrations, he
can add 20 trillion to the national debt. Bush added about 5 trillion (fighting 2 wars): Obama added $10 trillion
(fighting the recession and expanding the welfare /nanny government). Lets see how Trump does. If he keeps
his promises to cut taxes, grow employment, and control illegal immigration (with the help of our whimpy
republican leaders in congress) it may be a longggggggggggg and painful 8 years for you Bill.
Glen,
With the way things are going, it’s not good for any of us to be passive and not upset.
The best way to reduce the deficit is to put people to work. These tax cuts will go a long way to create incentive for evil corporations to bring jobs to America. Already this administration has 17 year low unemployment, consecutive quarters of 3% GDP growth and creation of over 40k new manufacturing jobs. I’d call that a pretty good year and cannot wait to see how much the new tax code improves on these numbers. People should strive to get into that next tax bracket instead of blaming others for their situation.
Not to mention the nice jump in the retirement plan which is directly tied to the evil corporations doing well.
Mike – besides the fact that Congress passes budgets (so most of “Obama’s” debt also belongs to the GOP), here’s the problem. Increasing the debt is acceptable if we are in recession. That stimulates the economy and gets people back to work. When we are in a growth period we should REDUCE the debt. Some of our worst increases in debt came in booms (1983-90, 2002-07) which is insane. Now the economy is growing, we should NOT be increasing debt. Moreover, whoever is President, we need to stop the “trend” to add debt. That is destroying our country – total debt is 350% of GDP (that includes private sector debt – the public is as bad as the government in amassing debt), which is very dangerous. China could put us in economic crisis not only by dumping bonds and currency, but just by refusing to buy more debt! We are very vulnerable because of the debt level. It’s not really a partisan thing either. In the 80s the Democrats and Republicans made a great compromise. The Democrats said “spend more,” and the GOP said “tax less.” Their compromise: do both! That put us on this unsustainable path. Now the only real answer is to reverse that compromise – increase taxes on the wealthy, and cut spending. But that is painful on both ends and no party wants to do it. So debt will rise, inflation will come, American decline will continue, and common sense will be lost in favor of partisan rhetoric.
Dream on you chieftains of trickle down theory. Debt is debt and it’s not going to work out well in the long run whether it’s for social welfare programs or corporate profits. The cash may not go into the economy in productive ways. The greedy and unethical guys on Wall Street will invent some new, sexy investment product like bundling high risk home mortgages. This will suck up the tax cut money, and it will all come crashing down in another bursting speculative bubble. Remember “too big to fail”? How about the Dot Com bust in the 90’s. Then there was the savings and loan scandal in the 1980’s. Churchill wrote “The longer you look back, the farther you can see forward.” It was Voodoo economics in Reagan Era and that hasn’t changed. President Chump ran his casinos into the ground with debt and extravagance. And now he’s in charge of our country. When a few people (the millionaires and billionaires) get their hands on increasingly large amounts of capital LOOK OUT!
You better watch out.
You better not cry.
You better not pout.
I’m telling you why.
Donald Trump is stealing you blind.
It does sound good. Give the corporations a tax cut so they can keep more of the money they make and reinvest it (expansion/hiring). But corporate profits are breaking records NOW before this tax break. When they have even more money, what incentive do they have to do that “right thing” instead of what they do now? There is no incentive to reinvest, hire, or bring the offshore money back. We are “hoping” the corporations will do the right thing. I wouldn’t hold my breath.
There are some cities on the east coast right now falling all over themselves to get an Amazon Distribution Center in their city. From tax incentives to free land and everything in between, they’re offering it! Amazon will pick that location based on these incentives. If the new tax plan reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20% for those corporations that reinvest in the U.S, THAT would be an incentive.
About 3 trill of The debt Obama added was to pay for the little Bush kid’s wars which hadn’t been paid for. We’ll be paying for those for years to come. Those who never served thought that was a swell idea.
Scott,
I have been beating the “cut government spending” drum for 20 years. I am 100% in agreement with you
for the first time ever!!! In my earlier post, i was reminding poor old Bill about the huge debt that Obama
added. He is quick to blame a republican president about a possible $1.4 trillion increase in the debt, but
fails to mention the debts of the previous Democrat president. You gave “most” blame to the repubicans for
increasing the debt. There is noooooooo doubt that many republicans in congress spend as bad as the
Dems. No doubt!!! But they did manage to pass legislation to freeze spending at the previous years level.
They didn’t cut spending, but the did try to stop the automatic yearly increases in many departments. The
Dems cried fowl and also claimed the Repubs were making “Draconian cuts” to programs for children and
the poor and the elderly, bla bla bla. Obama vetoed it and killed the legislation. There were no budget
freezes during Obama’s 8 years. Obama actually wanted more spending in many domestic programs, but
the Repubs denied him. Trump asked for 25% cuts to every government agency,except the military, when
he became president. I knew that would never happen, but i was hopeful that we might get 5% cuts from
our majority repubs. I knowTrump would sign that. But it appears that they have jumped over to the Dems
side and now want increases in all agencies. Go figure!!!!
I think the corpoarate rate drop to 20% in the new tax proposal is too much. I think 25% is a good place to
start. That drop will certainly encourage many large corps to bring their headquarters and tax monies
back to the USA. The rich are already taxed enough. The best way to pay for the tax cuts for all is with
cuts to government spending and waste. Let’s try that for once this century.
I’d go for 20% IF loopholes were closed. I mean, even Social Democratic Sweden has a rate about 22% I think (though again, with few loopholes). I’m all for cutting taxes and streamlining regulations on small businesses – I agree with a lot of GOP points on those issues. But: There has been a real shift of relative income and wealth to the wealthiest. People talk about the top 1%, but it’s really the top 0.1%. Between 1945 and 1980 debt levels went down, and the distribution of wealth became more equal – that was because we had a strong middle class. Since then – due to policies of both parties – we’ve gone the other way and the distribution is about where it was at the turn of the 20th century! That means the middle class is squeezed, and wages for most Americans haven’t increased much in real terms. The problem with low taxes on the super wealthy is that it can feed bubbles, and with globalization tax cuts often lead to money flowing abroad.
Eisenhower refused to lower marginal tax rates (the highest was at 90% back then!) because he said a country in debt cannot cut taxes. I personally cannot support a tax cut that increases the deficit at this time. I agree there has to be spending cuts, and perhaps a reorganization of how government operates. I get frustrated by the Democrats unwillingness to see that need too. I also wouldn’t exempt the military from cuts – we spend nearly half the world’s military budget, we can certainly defend ourselves from attack. Being a global super power is a luxury we can’t afford when we’re so deep in debt, in my opinion. I honestly believe that within a decade or two debt is going to force some very tough circumstances on the country. I tell young people, “my generation had a huge party and we’re leaving you the bill – remind us older folk of that when we complain about you guys!”
One more point – maybe this can crystallize my concern. Up through the early 80s there was a real correlation between increased productivity and increased wages. Since then productivity has increased rather dramatically thanks to technology, but wages have increased little. The benefits of increased productivity have skewed to the wealthy who own stocks (which to be sure includes lots of middle class retirement accounts), and the workers fall farther behind. Cheap Chinese goods has made that bearable, but China is starting to shift it’s policy away from simply selling things as cheap as possible. I honestly don’t think this need to be a right-left issue, to me it’s pragmatism – and I think both sides should give up some sacred cows to fix the debt issue before it explodes on us.
No tax breaks unless 90% of their workforce is right here in the good ole’ USA.
If they outsource– Tax em’
JFK was a democrat and proposed the exact same type of tax cuts. Obama, with the help of Elizabeth Warren, asked for and got $900 billion dollars to bail out rich people who ran their businesses into the dirt, and took the handout and gave the CEOs 8 digit bonuses.bailing out the banks and the car companies did nothing to help America, but it did make a few unions rich. His cash for clunkers program killed 10 years worth of affordable used cars off the market and crushed the steel market that many poor people use to haul scrap iron to make money, those prices were never lower. If the people who employ the rest of us want a tax break give it to them. And, poor people qualify for Medicaid they are not losing anything.
When JFK was President top marginal rates were 90%. He cut them – Eisenhower had refused to – and that was a good idea at the time. The marginal rates were too high.
Alas, it isn’t 1961. Now with globalization those who benefit from tax decreases are not likely to spend the money creating jobs here – they are likely to invest overseas, or (as with the real estate bubble) chase ‘easy money’ and create unproductive bubbles. That’s why the middle class is stuck, and most growth goes to the very wealthy. They fool people into thinking, “it’ll trickle down…”
It remains my firm belief that anyone who utters or writes the phrase ‘millionaires and billionaires’ should be stripped of his citizenship and exiled to a country where success is as severely punished as he would like it to be here.
There is only one way, at this late date, to achieve significant tax reform. Burn the US tax code, every single one of its 75,000 incomprehensible pages. Then replace it with a consumption tax that needs no return at all and contains no special-interest loopholes and gimmicks.
Extra credit project: Figure out which major party is responsible for most of those 75K pages. Ready, set, go …