The Absurdity Of The Tax Bill

[steve_bank]

The belief that reducing taxes will lead to large scale job creation is pure conservative fantasy. It is not born out by history.

Capitalism is a system that dynamically adjusts costs for resources, products, and services in accordance with supply and demand. Jobs and wages vary with supply and demand. I worked in tech for 30 years including Intel and Lockheed.

I never worked anywhere that prople were hired because there was money to do so. Adding people or buying capital equipment is always on a cost benefit basis.

In Econ 101 the instructor asked ‘What is the purpose of capitalism?’. I said something like to provide goods and services at the lowest cost to the most people. He pointed a finger at me saying ‘Wrong..the purpose of capitalism is to make a profit’.

It took years on the job to fully comprehend. The purpose of capitalism is to make a profit. Innovation and job creation are side effects not goals.

Capitalism is not a social system, the conservatives seem to think it is. There is no morality or moral obligation inherent to capitalism. Capitalism is bounded by government to prevent or limit abuse.

The tax bill is ridiculous.

 

[ZiprHead]

I was watching CNN this morning and they tried to interview an expert on the Great Depression. The interview fell through due to a technical glitch but the position of the expert was that this tax bill was very similar to economic policies enacted by Republicans in the twenties that lead to the Great Depression.

 

[southernhybrid]

I was watching CNN this morning and they tried to interview an expert on the Great Depression. The interview fell through due to a technical glitch but the position of the expert was that this tax bill was very similar to economic policies enacted by Republicans in the twenties that lead to the Great Depression.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/11/30/im-a-depression-historian-the-gop-tax-bill-is-straight-out-of-1929/?hpid=hp_hp-cards_hp-posteverything%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.6fdcc7340c5c

“There are two ideas of government,” William Jennings Bryan declared in his 1896 “Cross of Gold” speech. “There are those who believe that if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them.”

That was more than three decades before the collapse of the economy in 1929. The crash followed a decade of Republican control of the federal government during which trickle-down policies, including massive tax cuts for the rich, produced the greatest concentration of income in the accounts of the richest 0.01 percent at any time between World War I and 2007 (when trickle-down economics, tax cuts for the hyper-rich, and deregulation again resulted in another economic collapse).

Yet the plain fact that the trickle-down approach has never worked leaves Republicans unfazed. The GOP has been singing from the Market-is-God hymnal for well over a century, telling us that deregulation, tax cuts for the rich, and the concentration of ever more wealth in the bloated accounts of the richest people will result in prosperity for the rest of us. The party is now trying to pass a scam that throws a few crumbs to the middle class (temporarily — millions of middle-class Americans will soon see a tax hike if the bill is enacted) while heaping benefits on the super-rich, multiplying the national debt and endangering the American economy.

I'm guessing that it might be the same guy that wrote the above editorial for WaPo the other day. The tax bill is very worrisome, when you consider the negative impact it will likely have on the economy.

 

[SLD]

 

[ideologyhunter]

Republicans themselves don't believe in trickle-down. It's just the gas they administer to reach in to the nation's innards and hack away. If trickle-down worked, Bush 43 woulda ushered in an era of unbelievable prosperity. Instead of running the damn bus off the edge of a canyon road.

 

[Tristan Scott]

The belief that reducing taxes will lead to large scale job creation is pure conservative fantasy.

Its not a conservative fantasy, they know full well it won't. I'd call it propaganda. If they were serious about the tax bill creating jobs, they would have written it into the bill.

 

[Tristan Scott]

Another piece of propaganda is that lowering the corporate tax will somehow help small business. Small business, just like large business don't actually pay taxes. They manage taxes. Their customers actually pay their taxes.

Lowering the rate will do nothing to create jobs, nor will it bring jobs back from overseas. Jobs didn't go overseas because of taxes, they went overseas for cheap-ass labor.

 

[Elixir]

Another piece of propaganda is that lowering the corporate tax will somehow help small business. Small business, just like large business don't actually pay taxes. They manage taxes. Their customers actually pay their taxes.

Lowering the rate will do nothing to create jobs, nor will it bring jobs back from overseas. Jobs didn't go overseas because of taxes, they went overseas for cheap-ass labor.

Not quite. My SB pays through the nose.

 

[Tristan Scott]

Another piece of propaganda is that lowering the corporate tax will somehow help small business. Small business, just like large business don't actually pay taxes. They manage taxes. Their customers actually pay their taxes.

Lowering the rate will do nothing to create jobs, nor will it bring jobs back from overseas. Jobs didn't go overseas because of taxes, they went overseas for cheap-ass labor.

Not quite. My SB pays through the nose.

Sure but if taxes are raised you charge more for your goods or services to compensate. Most small businesses have an earning goal in mind for your personal earnings from the business. The taxes are just another item of overhead.

 

[Elixir]

Another piece of propaganda is that lowering the corporate tax will somehow help small business. Small business, just like large business don't actually pay taxes. They manage taxes. Their customers actually pay their taxes.

Lowering the rate will do nothing to create jobs, nor will it bring jobs back from overseas. Jobs didn't go overseas because of taxes, they went overseas for cheap-ass labor.

Not quite. My SB pays through the nose.

Sure but if taxes are raised you charge more for your goods or services to compensate. Most small businesses have an earning goal in mind for your personal earnings from the business. The taxes are just another item of overhead.

What would help us would be more money in the hands of our customers/consumers. Cutting corporate rates might enable lower prices, but doesn't help us gain market share. This tax giveaway for the wealthy and big companies will only hurt us.

 

[steve_bank]

SB can use some relief, no question. They do not havethe array of deductions big companies have.

Larger companies do not pay near the nominal tax rates. I learned early that business seeks to make money but never show a profit for taxes. That's what accountants and lawyers are for. It is corporate welfare. The givt underwrote electronics technology and aviation development through contracts and academic grants.

People talk of Reagan tax cuts, but a massive increase in military spending acted as a stimulus for a while.

 

[ZiprHead]

I was watching CNN this morning and they tried to interview an expert on the Great Depression. The interview fell through due to a technical glitch but the position of the expert was that this tax bill was very similar to economic policies enacted by Republicans in the twenties that lead to the Great Depression.

I'm guessing that it might be the same guy that wrote the above editorial for WaPo the other day. The tax bill is very worrisome, when you consider the negative impact it will likely have on the economy.

Yup, that's the guy. Thanks for finding that.

 

[Horatio Parker]

The bill will have the desired effect on the GOP donor class.

And that's the point.

 

[laughing dog]

I have no problem with the GOP reducing taxes because that is their raison d'etre. I do have a problem with their pathetic and disingenuous rationales for cutting taxes, especially in this bill.

What is truly revealing, is that GOP is raising the effective tax rates on graduate students and some in the middle class while reducing them for the more wealthy. Add in their rumblings of going after "welfare" to ameliorate the effects of this mooted tax cuts on the deficit, and once again, they are showing themselves to be the party of the reverse Robin Hoods.

 

[Valjean]

Sometimes loose lips let strategy slip out:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2...maker-admits-pushing-tax-scam-please-his-rich

Just the latest move in the war on Roosevelt's New Deal and Johnson's Great Society.
The "Economic Royalists" have been chipping away at these for sixty years or more.
https://www.theguardian.com/inequal...m-concentrated-wealth-robber-barons-superrich

 

[Tristan Scott]

McConnel has said it all along. This tax cut is for the people who put us in office.

 

[Tristan Scott]

The old tax system was the system that created jobs because it mandated it in the codes. If an earner made a lot of money and kept it all the earner would be stuck in a 70 or even 90% tax category. But if they put that money back into their business, or back into the economy through so-called loopholes, they could exempt that portion of their earnings.

Of course the rich didn't like it so they put out propaganda about the loopholes: 3 martini lunches; corporate yachts; Cadillacs for executives, etc, but this was all putting money back into the economy creating jobs. People make the yachts and Cadillacs, and work in the lounge where the martinis are sold.

As I said, if the republicans gave a shit about creating jobs it would be easy to write it in to the tax codes. But they don't.

 

[untermensche]

The most vibrant and healthy economy is the economy where expendable wealth is spread into as many hands as possible.

A minority of millionaires and billionaires have nothing to do with a vibrant and healthy economy. They are in fact a hindrance to one.

 

[braces_for_impact]

The belief that reducing taxes will lead to large scale job creation is pure conservative fantasy.

Its not a conservative fantasy, they know full well it won't. I'd call it propaganda. If they were serious about the tax bill creating jobs, they would have written it into the bill.

I disagree with this. I think they've been smelling their own shit for so long they've convinced themselves it smells of roses. Did you see how they were caught flat footed by that procedural snafu when it came back (gulp) the tax bill wouldn't pay for itself? McConnell didn't know what to do and had to regroup until the next morning. They have faith Jesus will come back, and they have faith that supply side economics works, and one is about as likely as the other. They've put forth several different bills to be scored by several different bipartisan organizations, and every time they dispute their findings as "liberal bias". Any intelligentsia in the GOP is long gone, and the policy proposal and analysis arms of the GOP now look an awful lot like a T-Rex. Their faith is unshakable, to all of our detriment.

 

[steve_bank]

If things all goes badly as some feel including health care, at some point people will see no benefit in buying into the system.

Are the wealthy so insular they have no idea on what the stability of their wealth depends. Perhaps Trump is a prime example.

If things get really bad having gold and guns in your basement will not do you any good. I get a good laugh at the commercials offering personal gold as a hedge against economic collapse.