Tag: Reaganomics

Deficit spikes 25 percent through January

The Hill logoThe federal deficit through January climbed to $389 billion, a 25 percent spike over the same period last year, according to Treasury Department data released Wednesday.

The Treasury estimates the deficit will surpass $1 trillion this year for the first time since 2012.

Overall receipts were down since last year by $68 billion, largely due to a drop in individual corporate taxes. Spending, in the meantime, was up $147 billion, as outlays spiked on defense, health, veterans affairs and Social Security. Continue reading.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom Dings Trump’s $3 Trillion Pricetag For His ‘Booming’ Economy

The president is piling on debt for U.S. taxpayers, while California has a surplus, Newsom crows.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom stacked up his state’s financials against America’s and mocked Donald Trump for racking up an extra $3 trillion in debt for what the president characterizes as a “booming” national economy.

Trump promised to balance the budget when he was campaigning, but the national debt has now reached a record of more than $23 trillion. (“Who the hell cares about the budget?” Trump asked donors at a fundraiser last month.)

California, meanwhile, is reporting “record surpluses,” low unemployment and high job growth, the Democratic governor tweeted Thursday. “Progressive policies and economic growth DO go hand-in-hand.”

Trump Opens Door to Cuts to Medicare and Other Entitlement Programs

New York Times logoThe president signaled a willingness to scale back Medicare, a shift from his 2016 platform of protecting entitlement programs.

WASHINGTON — President Trump suggested on Wednesday that he would be willing to consider cuts to social safety-net programs like Medicare to reduce the federal deficit if he wins a second term, an apparent shift from his 2016 campaign promise to protect funding for such entitlements.

The president made the comments on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Despite promises to reduce the federal budget deficit, it has ballooned under Mr. Trump’s watch as a result of sweeping tax cuts and additional government spending.

Asked in an interview with CNBC if cuts to entitlements would ever be on his plate, Mr. Trump answered yes. Continue reading.

NOTE:  We noted back with the passage of the Trump/GOP tax cut for the rich, that we’d be seeing this happen “because of the national debt” which has ballooned due to less taxes on corporations (many pay nothing) and the richest of the rich.

Trump Tax Cut Saved Billions For Banks That Cut US Jobs

Donald Trump promised the 2017 Republican tax law would create jobs and support the middle class. Instead, six big banks have pocketed an additional $32 billion in savings — while cutting more than 1,000 jobs — over the past couple of years as a result of that law, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

Bloomberg calculated the additional savings from the GOP tax law by looking at the tax rates banks paid before the 2017 law (30 percent) to the rates the banks paid after the law went into effect (between 18 percent and 20 percent). The banks saw an additional $14 billion in profits in 2018, then another $18 billion in additional profits in 2019.

In the meantime, the banks also cut their workforce by a combined 1,200 jobs by the end of 2019. Continue reading.

Under Trump’s tax bill, workers pay higher rates than corporations

AlterNet logoWorkers at some of the biggest corporations in the world are paying higher tax rates than their employers, according to a new study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

The Republican-passed tax cuts signed by President Trump in 2017 permanently lowered the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent but many companies are paying nowhere near that figure. The study identified 379 Fortune 500 companies that turned a profit in 2019 and found that the companies paid an average tax rate of 11.3 percent.

At least 91 of the profitable Fortune 500 companies paid no taxes or had a negative tax rate, including giants like Amazon, Starbucks, Netflix and General Motors. Another 56 companies paid an effective tax rate of 2.2 percent. Just 57 of the companies the study looked at paid effective tax rates of 21 percent or higher. Continue reading

As Trump Hails Stock Market, Democrats Point to Struggling Workers

New York Times logoIn Iowa, Democratic candidates sought to undercut President Trump’s core message of a strong economy by making the case that it isn’t working for the right people.

DES MOINES — On paper, Esther Mabior should be fine. She has a degree from Iowa State University, where she majored in economics, and lives in a city where her chosen profession, the insurance business, employs thousands of people.

But Ms. Mabior, 26, can’t find a job as an insurance adjuster. And she says her own experience is a lot like the stock market highs and the ever-expanding gross domestic product she keeps hearing about: It all looks good on the surface, but deeper down things aren’t so rosy.

“There may be people doing well,” Ms. Mabior said after attending an event for Pete Buttigieg’s campaign in Des Moines over the weekend, calling herself “living proof” that as far as the economy is concerned, “it’s not that great.” Continue reading

How Democrats Can Make Trump Pay For His Tax Fraud

President Donald Trump is preparing to run for re-election by citing the strength of the American economy. But while most Americans do feel relatively at ease with the state of the economy, Trump’s major signature legislation that was supposed to trigger an economic boom — the 2017 tax cuts — is turning out to be a bust. And if Democrats want to undermine Trump’s message on the economy, they would be wise to focus on this massive failure.

Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act two years ago now, prompting reflection on how it measures up to the promises made.

Writing for  the Chicago Tribune, Steve Chapman recently declared the tax cuts “a mammoth fraud.” Continue reading

The Trump Tax Cuts Were A Mammoth Fraud

Decades from now, many Americans will have to consult history books to gain an appreciation of the lowest point of Donald Trump’s presidency: his impeachment. But they will be able to feel the effects of his highest point: the 2017 tax bill, which he signed into law two years ago Sunday. That’s because they will still be paying for it.

Trump and his party took great pride in enacting the biggest tax overhaul in a generation. “It’s going to be a tremendous thing for the American people,” the president exulted. But like most things he says, that claim was unfounded. The package turned out to be an extravagant mirage.

Americans thought they got a tax cut. What they really got was a tax increase that hasn’t yet taken effect. When you cut taxes but don’t cut spending to match, as the Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman often noted, you are not cutting taxes but merely delaying them. And total spending has not been reduced; it has been raised.

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Two years in, Trump tax cuts face big test with reelection bid

The Hill logoTwo years after President Trump signed his tax cut legislation into law, the measure has not become a runaway hit with the public, posing a potential challenge for his reelection bid as workers say they haven’t seen much of a benefit. 

Democrats believe that their calls to roll back the 2017 law and raise taxes on the wealthy will resonate with voters and help them win back the White House next year.

“We have to eliminate [a] significant number of these god-awful tax cuts that were given to the very wealthy,” former Vice President Joe Biden said during Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate.

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Trump’s ‘Reform’ Allows 91 Big Companies To Escape Any Federal Tax

A total of 91 of the largest companies in the United States paid zero dollars in federal income taxes in 2018 under the tax law passed by Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress.

A new analysis released by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) on Monday found that Fortune 500 companies were able to avoid at least $73.9 billion in taxes under the first year of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

ITEP’s analysis found that companies like Amazon, Chevron, Halliburton, and IBM, who do billions of dollars in sales, paid no federal income taxes. They also found that 56 companies paid an effective tax rate between 0 percent and 5 percent.

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