<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail-asset-masthead" style="margin:20px 0px 40px;text-align:left;color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;box-sizing:border-box;background-color:transparent"><header class="gmail-asset-header" style="display:block;box-sizing:border-box"><h1 class="gmail-headline" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 100px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:46.2px;font-weight:400;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif" size="2">This is long, but worth the read.</font></span></h1><h1 class="gmail-headline" style="margin:0px 100px 0px 0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);line-height:46.2px;font-weight:400;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif" size="2">GOP tax cut will not make economy great again
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<font face="georgia,serif"><li style="padding-right:5px;padding-left:5px;display:inline-block;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="box-sizing:border-box">By Ralph Maughan</span></li> <li style="padding-right:5px;padding-left:5px;display:inline-block;box-sizing:border-box"><time class="gmail-asset-date gmail-text-muted" style="color:rgb(170,170,170);box-sizing:border-box" datetime="2017-12-10T00:37:00-07:00">Idaho State Journal, Dec. 10, 2017</time></li><li class="gmail-hidden-print" style="padding-right:5px;padding-left:5px;display:inline-block;box-sizing:border-box"><a class="gmail-cm" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);text-decoration:none;box-sizing:border-box;background-color:transparent" href="https://idahostatejournal.com/opinion/columns/gop-tax-cut-will-not-make-economy-great-again/article_d395b271-a4ea-512d-b86c-ccde40f1e76b.html#comments"><span class="gmail-fb-comments-count gmail-fb_comments_count_zero" style="box-sizing:border-box"><span class="gmail-fb_comments_count" style="box-sizing:border-box">0</span></span>)</a></li>
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<div class="gmail-subscriber-preview" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">The United States once had an economy that was the envy of the world, and most Americans were proud and bragged about it. “America: “highest standard of living in the world,” the slogan proclaimed, but today we have dropped to number 19.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-preview" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Here’s why the economy is no longer bragged about. The prosperity is no longer shared. The growing economy’s gains almost all go to the top. It used to be that if the economy grew, say 3 percent in real terms, average hourly earnings increased 3 percent, and wealth overall increased by about the same amount. Nowadays economic growth, always said to cure many economic ills, just goes to the top. Economic growth does not mean more jobs or higher wages.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Happily, the last year or two has shown a couple per cent real growth in wages. Still, average hourly wages, when adjusted for inflation, peaked way back in 1972! (PEW Research Center).</font></p></div>
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<div id="gmail-google_ads_iframe_/94837440/pocatello/isj/opinion/columns_0__container__" style="border:0px rgb(51,51,51);width:300px;height:250px;display:inline-block;box-sizing:border-box"></div></div>
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</div><div class="gmail-tncms-region gmail-hidden-print" id="gmail-tncms-region-article_instory_top" style="box-sizing:border-box"></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Many people do not understand, however, that those who are on top do not work for wages. Instead, their earnings arrive as capital gains, dividends, interest, royalties, pass through income, and the like.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Here is an amazing statistic. From 1930 to 1970, the income of the bottom 90 percentgrew in real terms but that of the top 1 percentdid not. However, beginning in 1980, and ever since, the income of the top 1 percenthas grown, but not the bottom 90 percent.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">From 1969 to 1972 inequality of our incomes reached the lowest level since statistics on the matter began, but inequality started to grow in the 1980s. That has continued and accelerated. The U.S. now has the eighth most unequal income on the planet, but wait. More importantly, in terms of wealth, we are the most unequal country on Earth. What’s the difference between income and wealth? Income is like a flowing river which flows into a reservoir (wealth).</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Average folks are finally noticing our world topping inequality, though many still think the problem is that there are too many “welfare cheats” and unworthy minorities sucking things up just below them. I won’t argue about this perception except that in total dollars or taxes this “cheating,” and the like, is like a penny out of a dollar.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">I think it’s significant that the huge growth in wealth of the top 1 per cent began with Ronald Reagan and his tax cuts of 1981. He called these tax cuts “supply side,” and said they would pay for the lost tax revenue in economic growth. Democrats called them his idea instead, “trickle down,” and they predicted the federal budget deficit would grow, and the deficit did grow quickly. It became the biggest on record except for the borrowing to finance World War II back in 1941-45.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">The budget deficit had been high under Reagan’s predecessor, President Jimmy Carter. However, under Reagan it soon tripled.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">In 1981 the United States spiraled into a deep recession. Unemployment reached 10.3 percent. Reagan worked across the aisle to increase taxes, though not the personal income tax rates he had fought so hard to lower. He supported instead broadening the tax base by cracking down on tax evaders and eliminating loopholes.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Then, after two years of discussion, a bipartisan agreement between President Reagan and Democratic House Speaker “Tip” O-Neill, became the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Compare the two years of discussion (1985-6) between the political parties with the two weeks of secret Republican tax writing of today’s tax “reform bill.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">The 1986 law really was a reform bill. It was planned to be revenue neutral. It lowered the top income tax bracket even more, but made up the difference by broadening the tax code by repealing many large tax credits and deductions — “loopholes.”</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">President Bill Clinton pushed for tax increases to restore some of the reductions in the higher brackets eliminated under Reagan. His bill passed by one vote in both the House and Senate.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">People usually don’t like tax increases, but you will probably read in the current news that Clinton’s tax increases were actually more popular in the polls than the current Republican/Trump tax cuts. Clinton’s bill became law in 1993 and raised enough tax revenue to balance the budget. Near the end of Clinton’s second term an almost unheard-of development happened. The federal government collected enough tax revenue to not only balance the budget, but run a surplus — pay down the national debt — for three years in a row (1998-2000).</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">A web search shows Republicans would tear their hair out before they will agree with the idea that the Clinton tax increases raised enough revenue to begin paying down the national debt, because if that were true, then almost every part of GOP tax policy for prosperity by means of tax cuts for the corporations and rich people would be proven wrong.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">The celebrated budget surplus was a key issue in the 2000 race between G.W. Bush and Al Gore. Both candidates said they would not spend this surplus. They would put it in a “lock box.” They competed with each other in their descriptions of how their lock box would be harder break into than the other’s. Of course, after the election there was no more talk about lock boxes. The proposed Bush tax cuts became the topic.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">“Dubya’s” tax cuts were enacted. They were typical Republican tax cuts that favored the upper income classes. There is little evidence the cuts caused an economic growth increase or that they paid for themselves. The surplus went away, and deficits returned. Ten years later the after-tax incomes of the top 1 per had grown by 6.7 per cent. The top 40 per cent had grown by 3.8 per cent. The incomes of the middle 40 percent had grown only 2.8 per cent. The lower 20 per cent had increased just by 1 per cent. These figures do not prove the tax cuts had no positive effect. Perhaps something else caused the pro-tax cut predictions to be wrong. Whatever, but inequality grew, deficits returned and at a fast rate.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Now we are back to voting on another tax cut. It too favors the top. This time the cuts are supposed to help corporations directly more than individual income tax rates. The tax on their profits will be reduced from 35 to 20 percent. So, the corporations will be able to keep more of them. They will use this money to invest in jobs, equipment, buildings, technology, etc. This corporate investment will stimulate the economy into sustained growth rates of 4 to 6 percenta year (rates unknown in the past). Such a rapidly growing economy will provide jobs and, as usual, it is claimed the tax cuts will pay for themselves. We will all will go home happy on the average.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Will corporations really invest if they get to keep more of their profits? Will that help wages or the number of jobs?</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Right now, we are near the top of an economic boom. What are corporations doing right now? Most are flush with cash, but they are not increasing investment even though they have the money to do it. Instead, they are buying back their own stock, giving big dividends to shareholders, and buying other companies. Furthermore, If they wanted to invest, wouldn’t they be using their current cash to do it?</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Indeed, The Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank asked executives, “If passed in its current form, what would be the likely impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on your capital investment and hiring plans?” Only 8 percentof the executives surveyed said the bill would make them increase hiring plans ‘significantly.’ Only 11 percentsaid they would significantly increase their capital investment plans. A solid majority answered either “no change” or “increase somewhat.”</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">I don’t think investment will increase. Instead the tax cuts will be converted into more personal income for those who already have much. Let me explain.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-tncms-region gmail-hidden-print" id="gmail-tncms-region-article_instory_middle" style="box-sizing:border-box"></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">In recent years shareholders have demanded more and more of their money back as dividends. The days of the “good citizen” corporation are passing. Those were the days when they made many donations to the public, supported charities, environmental progress, uplifting minorities, etc... Now it’s back to making money and giving it to their owners — the shareholders — and to the top management. In fact, CEOs “buy” big jumps in their own remuneration by catering to the shareholders with dividends.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">My point is today corporations, indeed most large businesses, are likely to try to maximize profit. If hiring more workers or giving wage increases help them do it, they will. If it doesn’t help, they won’t provide these benefits. Wages grew along with the economy back in the day when that helped business to increase profits, and they were also under pressure from organized labor, but organized labor has now been almost killed off.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Today, if a corporation needs more workers, it might well buy instead a new kind of capital — robots (bots). Bots are getting cheaper and more productive all the time, and they are not your friend. They don’t need health care, they don’t get pregnant, they have no family obligations, need day care or flex-time. They don’t do drugs. They can work in unsafe conditions. They don’t try to organize labor unions. Best of all, you can kill them when you are through with them.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Corporations try to make profits. Wages and salaries are just a by-product of this. If you really want that byproduct — helping the working class or the middle class — then give them a tax cut directly. There is no need to give the cuts somewhere else and hope.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Increasingly, many at the top hardly see us as morally significant at all. Did you read U.S. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley’s comments about those of us who are not trying to build an estate on which our heirs would have to pay estate taxes? That is, by the way, would be an estate of $5.5-million plus.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Senator Grassley wants the estate tax completely repealed, and argued for it, he said, “I think not having [that is, by repealing] the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing… as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Why would the Republicans push a tax cut that is so obviously unpopular in the polls — just like their planned replacement of the Affordable Care Act? They say it will show they can govern — by passing a major bill. That is clearly what the President cares about. Trump proclaims, “tax cuts for Christmas!” It that why they wrote the bill in just two weeks and voted on it without a single hearing or even releasing a copy of the bill’s 500 pages except just before the Senate voted (with hand-written amendments to it in the margins). Who demanded this? It wasn’t the public.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Tax legislation is complex, and errors in it can cost or unwittingly give away billions quickly. In the past, it has taken several years to write a tax bill. Reports are this two-week wonder will keep tax attorneys and accountants in full employment the rest of their careers litigating the effects of the mistakes in the text.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Perhaps the Republican base wanted this, but I think it came this way because the Republican congressionals have been loudly told by their donor class there will be no campaign contributions from them for the 2018 election if they fail with the tax cut — no more failure like the Obamacare replacement. So, what is worse for Republican congressionals, an unpopular new tax cut; or is it a drought in contributions from the big donors like the Koch’s or Sheldon Adelson?</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Regardless, the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” is not going to Make America Great Again or cause our economy once more to be the envy of the world.</font></p></div><div class="gmail-subscriber-only" style="box-sizing:border-box"><p style="margin:0px 0px 24px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:27px;box-sizing:border-box"><em style="box-sizing:border-box"><font face="georgia,serif">Dr. Ralph Maughan of Pocatello is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He retired after teaching there for 36 years, specializing in voting, public opinion and natural resource politics. He has written three outdoor guides, including “Hiking Idaho” with Jackie Johnson Maughan. He is currently president of the Western Watersheds Project.</font></em></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><font face="georgia,serif"><br clear="all"><br>-- </font><br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div> <div style="width:auto;height:auto"> <div> <div><div><font face="georgia,serif"></font><br></div></div></div></div></div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><font face="georgia,serif">A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. <br><br>-Greek proverb</font></div><div><font face="georgia,serif"><br>
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not
in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it
without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your
own understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.<br>
<br>
--Immanuel Kant<br>
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