Tax cut has no major impact on business spending

[channonc 466]

This is very predictable, but I doubt it will get much major TV coverage. A key piece of the article:

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"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.

Unfortunately, all tax cuts are doing at this point is increasing the federal deficit.

FULL ARTICLE

[AUloggerhead 2,242]

For Investors Business Daily viewpoint:  There's Much to Celebrate
 

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... To hear critics put it, the reforms to the individual income taxes — which lowered rates and expanded the standard deduction — and the much-needed cuts to the corporate income tax rate, were a bust. They didn't help families. Didn't boost corporate investment. They failed to turbocharge the economy. All they did was benefit the rich and explode the deficit.

You don't have to look very hard to see that the tax cuts did, indeed, boost GDP growth and incomes.

Early last year, for example, the Congressional Budget Office's pre-tax-cut forecast had 2018 growth at just 2% and the unemployment rate at 4.4%. GDP growth is well ahead of that pace, and the unemployment rate is just 3.7%. 

As we noted in this space yesterday, blue collar workers are now in short supply, "reversing a decades-long trend in the U.S." Average hourly wages are rising at 3.1%, the fastest rate since 1999. Unemployment rates are at lows not seen since 1969, and for minority groups, they're lower than any time on record. Median household income is at all-time highs.

None of this is a continuation of the Obama economy, which had flatlined the year before Trump took office. Growth was so sluggish that conventional wisdom was the U.S. economy was destined for slow growth in perpetuity.

But even if Trump's tax cuts did boost the economy, surely critics are right that they are driving the deficit into the stratosphere.

Nope. ...

 

 

 

At some point, we all are going to have to sit down and have an actual adult conversation regarding the arithmetic involved in this situation instead of taking pot shots to blame one party or the other.  Both parties are complicit in getting the country to this predicament. --  86% of the budget is on autopilot.  Structural changes need to be made in order to reverse the runaway train.   Kudos to Howard Schultz for having the courage to speak out about it.  I really hope he runs for president. 

 

Edit:  Sorry -- meant to include this link:  86%