Fool me once again?
From the Roosevelt Institute comes this graphic on the overall reality of macro policies:
The Republicans’ underlying assumption—that corporations invest more and create more jobs only when they are relieved of burdensome tax rates—is false. American businesses already enjoy a historically low cost of capital, and they have more than enough cash on hand to invest, raise wages, and create jobs. Corporations are choosing to make dividend payments and stock buybacks instead of investing because they face a lack of competitive pressure—itself the result of power and wealth shifting toward rich shareholders. Another tax cut for the rich will only make the problem worse.
Do you think they really believe that or is it just cover to let them reward their contributors?
An effective argument against the tax plan would supplement your handy graphic with specific, quantifiable bullet points. Show the differences. Quantity has a quality all its own in economics, too.
Demand drives all. Cutting wages reduces demand. Reduced demand means less reason to invest in productive capacity, not to mention utilization. How is taking money from labor and giving it to capital supposed to increase demand? Especially when we have a finance-ridden risk averse corporate culture everywhere but in financial services, where criminality is favored above all. For 40 years Republican and conservative policies in general have worked hard at reducing potential demand in the economy and now need to spin fantasies to justify continuing their failed social experiment.
Love your comments. Enjoyed the Trolls comment below; they rather prefer “gut feelings” to empirical facts that get in the way of their goodies…Although I didn’t get the demand drives all thing. Still very interesting comments — clearly the last thing the GOP and its “minions” want to hear. Who needs facts based reality!
First time commenters always go to moderation.
Simple question for people who might consider voting for a Republican: “Do you really think the wealthy are sitting around saying, ‘Gee, I wish I had more money — then I could hire more people?'”
Hiring people? We are past that. It is the rat race stage now. The last true time the US was at “full employment” was 1973. Since then, you have to find ways to reduce overhead cost to control total costs.