Thursday, November 16, 2017

CEOs crush Trump/Walker/Ryan job-creation lie

The lying about tax cuts for business that will, presto!, create jobs is getting louder in Washington.

Paul Ryan and Scott Walker keep on mouthing the old GOP bromide that tax cuts like those demanded by Donald Trump will lead suddenly-flush businesses to invest in jobs.

In fact, WI GOP Senator Ron Johnson says he won't vote for the Ryan/Trump GOP plan unless it provides more tax cuts to businesses. Like the one he could return to someday back home.

Ron Johnson, official portrait, 112th Congress.jpg
But a group of CEOs just showed senior Trump economic adviser Secretary Gary Cohn they will do no such thing: 
A group of CEOs on Tuesday appeared to cast doubt on one of the White House's biggest arguments for overhauling the tax code — right in front of the economic adviser Gary Cohn...
The moderator then asked those in attendance whether they were planning to increase their business investment if the tax bill became law. The CEOs in attendance did not seem to be on the same wavelength as Cohn.
While there was a smattering of raised hands in the auditorium, it was clearly not as many as Cohn would have liked.
"Why aren't the other hands up?" Cohn asked before moving on to another question.
Easy answer:

Because corporations will use tax savings to boost their bottom lines, increase dividends, add management bonuses, raise top salaries and directors' fees and acquire other businesses which almost inevitably leads to more layoffs, reduced competition and higher consumer and prices across wholesale and retail markets.

And, of course, a slice of this new-found private-sector wealth lifted from the rest of us will returned to the tax-cutting pols.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I wonder, would Ron Johnson oppose the GOP tax plan if his business was not an LLC?