The Trump/GOP Tax Cuts Are The Definition Of Insanity
The definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. You could say that about the Trump/GOP tax cuts of 2017. Supply side or trickle down tax cuts have had a long history of failure dating back to the Coolidge tax cuts of 1925.
The last supply side tax cuts were during the George W. Bush Administration. Bush had the worst jobs creation record since Herbert Hoover. By the time Bush left office, the economy had collapsed and was losing 800,000 jobs per month. Bush was the only two term president in American history to preside over a decline in middle class incomes during his two terms as president.
Despite the abject failure of the Bush tax cuts, the same Republicans in Congress who voted for the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts supported the Trump tax cuts. When Trump and the D.C. Republicans cut taxes in December 2017, they made the following promises:
- The average family would see a $4,000.00 pay raise.
- GDP would grow 4% a year.
- The tax cuts would pay for themselves.
- There would be a surge of business investment.
Recent developments indicate that everyone of these promises have already been broken. The tax cuts haven’t come even close to meeting the promises made by the former TV reality star and the D.C. Republicans.
According to a recent study by compensation-data company PayScale, take home pay — after taking into account inflation — fell 1.3% in 2018. Instead of using the tax cuts to increase wages as promised by the Trump Administration, corporations used their deficit financed tax cut windfall to buy back shares — which reached a record $1 trillion in 2018.
The other grandiose promises from the Trump Administration proved to be equally wrong. After GDP grew 4% in the second quarter of 2018, growth has slowed down considerably. Overall GDP growth was 3% in 2018 and the CBO is projecting that GDP will grow an anemic 2.3% in 2019.
The promise that the tax cuts would pay for themselves has proven to be disastrously wrong. This shouldn’t as a surprise to anybody since Reagan tripled the national debt and Bush 43 doubled the national debt.
We are getting a similar bad result on the deficit since Trump cut taxes. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the national debt has increased by $2 trillion ($2,000,000,000,000) since Trump took office on Jan. 20, 2017. That’s with Republicans in control of the House and Senate.
Similarly, a new report from the Treasury Department indicates that the government will be borrowing $1 trillion this year. That will be the second year in a row the U.S. will have to borrow $1 trillion to fund the Trump/GOP deficits.
And that’s not the end of the Administration’s bad predictions. According to a new poll from the National Association of Business Economists, 84% of business owners said they will not change their investment and hiring plans. In other words, there will not be the promised surge in business investment. Businesses have little incentive to invest when consumers are hurting and have less money to spend.
Every one of Nebraska’s Congressional representatives voted for this failed policy. We need to make them pay a price at the ballot box next year. The Democratic Campaign Committee has already targeted Don Bacon — who barely fended off a strong challenge from Kara Eastman in 2018. Bacon will be vulnerable again.
Jeff Fortenberry may also be facing accountability for his extreme votes in Nebraska CD01. In 2018, Jessica McClure received 40% of the vote even though she was outspent by a whopping margin of $590,000 to $77,000.00. Jessica even carried Lancaster County. Her strong finish is evidence of Fortenberry fatigue in CD01. If the long time GOP incumbent should draw a well funded opponent in 2020, he could also be vulnerable.
I believe 2020 will be our year. Trump’s presidency is swirling down the drain and the middle class and the farmers are getting hammered by the policies of the D.C. Republicans. Let’s commit ourselves to working hard for Democratic candidates in the 2020 cycle. We can do it!