Republican Tax Philosophy

CajunCrimson said:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bl...-223-000-as-jobless-rate-matches-historic-low




Companies paid out record dividends too. They just don't know what else to do with their money right now. The trade scare has caused them to hoard excess cash. Wages are rising. So is job growth. The economy is growing. What else were you hoping for ?

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The true revelation was tucked away at the bottom of the release, in the “Production and nonsupervisory employees” section: “From May 2017 to May 2018, real average hourly earnings decreased 0.1 percent, seasonally adjusted,” it read.

In today’s dollars, that’s a change from making an average of $22.62 per hour last May to making $22.59 per hour this May.

The report continued, “The decrease in real average hourly earnings combined with a 0.6-percent increase in the average workweek resulted in a 0.5-percent increase in real average weekly earnings over this period.” In other words, people are working a few more hours a week, so they’re taking home more pay, but only marginally.

The entire rationale behind the tax cut was to boost Americans’ wages. But the BLS numbers prove that workers who are not bosses and who produce things are in fact making less for their time than they did last year.

Center for American Progress policy analyst Alex Rowell constructed a chart based on the BLS data, showing the steep decline since 2015 in year-over-year annual hourly wage earnings for production and non-supervisory employees. (ThinkProgress is an editorially independent newsroom housed within the Center for American Progress.) Production and nonsupervisory employees make up 80 percent of private employment, according to Rowell.

Averages tell only part of the story. The raises that high earners receive could represent a huge portion of any average wage growth increase, while low-income earners pull in less than they did before. Median earnings data would give a better picture of what most people are experiencing.

Taking into account all employees — including bosses and non-production employees — the year-to-year change in real wages was flat from May 2017 to May 2018. Real average hourly earnings for both groups increased 0.1 percent from April 2018 to May 2018.

In real terms, the average worker made $10.75 per hour in May and $10.74 per hour in April.

According to Jared Bernstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, since Trump took office, the “real hourly pay of mid-class workers” is only up 0.4 percent, which amounts to “an extra dime an hour.”

“At this rate, that tax-cut induced $4,000 in your paycheck will take 28 years,” Bernstein wrote.

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CajunCrimson said:

It's a capitalistic economy. It's not designed for everyone to be rich. But it's designed for most not to be poor. Some will make more than others. But if all are lifted in the process, it works.

Whose economy would you trade it for? Given the same circumstances.

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BamaPokerplayer said:

Yeah, I can’t think of any economy that’s near our size that does it better. I just don’t understand why people always want to raise taxes instead of cutting government spending.

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America’s unemployment rate is hovering near half-century lows. There are now more job openings than unemployed workers in the United States for the first time since the government began tracking that ratio. For America’s working class, macroeconomic conditions don’t get much better than this.

And yet, most Americans’ wages aren’t getting any better, at all. Over the past 12 months, piddling wage gains — combined with modest inflation — have left the vast majority of our nation’s laborers with lower real hourly earnings than they had in May 2017. On Wall Street, the second-longest expansion in U.S. history has brought boom times — in the coming weeks, S&P 500 companies will dole out a record-high $124.1 billion in quarterly dividends. But on Main Street, returns have been slim.

...

There’s likely some truth to these narratives. But a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) offers a more straightforward — and political — explanation: American policymakers have chosen to design an economic system that leaves workers desperate and disempowered, for the sake of directing a higher share of economic growth to bosses and shareholders.

The OECD doesn’t make this argument explicitly. But its report lays waste to the idea that the plight of the American worker can be chalked up to impersonal economic forces, instead of concrete political decisions. If the former were the case, then American laborers wouldn’t be getting a drastically worse deal than their peers in other developed nations. But we are. Here’s a quick rundown of the various ways that American workers are getting ripped off:

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*In the United States, nearly 15 percent of workers earn less than half of the median wage. That gives the U.S. a higher “low-income rate” than any other developed nation besides Greece and Spain.
*Not only do Americans get fired more than other workers; we also get less warning. Every developed nation besides the U.S. and Mexico requires companies to give individual workers at least a week’s notice before laying them off; the vast majority of countries require more than a month. But if you’re reading this from an office in the U.S., your boss is free to tell you to pack your things at any moment.
*Many European countries have “active labor market policies” — programs that provide laid-off workers with opportunities to train for open positions. The United States, by contrast, does almost nothing to help its unemployed residents reintegrate into the labor force; no developed nation but Slovakia devotes a lower share of its wealth to such purposes.
*Between 1995 and 2013, workers’ share of national income in the U.S. dropped by eight percentage points — a steeper decline that in any other nation except for South Korea and Poland.

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Displaced Bama Fan said:

You can't buy votes by being fiscally responsible. That applies to both parties equally I might add.

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White House budget projects $1 trillion deficit in 2019

In an annual budget review, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) estimated that new legislation enacted since the release of its February budget — alongside new projections on other spending and receipts — would add $101 billion more to the 2019 deficit, pushing it above $1 trillion.

That figure would amount to 5.1 percent of the United States's gross domestic product, the nation’s total economic output.

The midyear budget review was released quietly on Friday.
http://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...se-budget-projects-1-trillion-deficit-in-2019

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Bamaro said:

Way to go fiscal conservatives! No recession and you are still racking up record deficits.

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CharminTide said:

I’m looking at my Betterment account and wondering how much I should really be investing right now. Already lowered my 403(b) to a level that ensures max employer matching and no more.

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TIDE-HSV said:

And that amounts to a massive fraud which is going to have a bitter end, just like all the rest of the smoke and mirrors. However, enjoy today. Don't worry about tomorrow...

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TIDE-HSV said:

Things are going great for me but not for the country. That ad is fool's gold...

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92tide said:

you need to see the big picture

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92tide said:

you need to see the big picture

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TIDE-HSV said:

Things are going great for me but not for the country. That ad is fool's gold...

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