Friday, June 29, 2018

Trump's Economic Miracle: Not...

I am sad to say that most Trump True Believers will likely believe the charlatan. If you like to live in the real world this is a good Fact Check. AP FACT CHECK: Trump dubs tax cuts an "economic miracle"

I mean it is easy to make the country's economy growth if you are willing to borrow trillions of dollars from our kids. But at least be honest about what you are doing.  This is the same game Dayton and the DEMs did in MN, they passed huge bonding bills and claimed economic success. 

It is easy to grow an economy by borrowing...   Duh... I could go one heck of a spending spree if I was putting it on someone else credit card...
"KUDLOW: "As the economy gears up, more people working, better jobs and careers, those revenues come rolling in, and the deficit, which is one of the other criticisms, is coming down, and it's coming down rapidly." 
THE FACTS: Nope. 
Since the fiscal year started in October, Treasury Department reports show the federal government has recorded a $385.4 billion deficit, a 12 percent jump from the same period in the previous year. 
The Congressional Budget Office was even more blunt in a long-term assessment released Tuesday. 
It estimates that the national debt — the sum of yearly deficits — will be $2.2 trillion higher in 2027 than it had previously forecast, largely a consequence of Trump's 10-year, $1.5 trillion tax cut. The size of the debt could be even higher if provisions of the tax cut that are set to expire are, instead, renewed."
And worse yet Trump wants to double down on this childish behavior.  I say childish because responsible adults pay their bills, they don't charge up their credit card and give the bill to their kids.

A few more interesting links:

From personal experience I can confirm that my employer is not sharing the new found wealth.  And based on most sources this seems typical.

The good news of course is that I am fairly wealthy and benefit from increases in the stock market. However now Trump is working to disrupt that also.


11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Borrowing money is important for growth. In a depression money is cheap, the problem is no one wants to borrow it.

There is conventional wisdom out there but no one believes it. The CW holds that when times are good, governments, just like people, should pay down debt. But our leaders don't do that. On the one hand they tell us they tell us the entitlements they passed and told us we could rely on are running out of money. But on the other hand when times are good, they borrow money to basically blow it on market speculation. It's one of the more important ways politicians are dishonest with us, I suppose. The funny things is that is so real. Trump went bankrupt so many times because instead of sticking to his business, building federally subsidized housing in Queens, he instead to blow his Dad's millions at the roulette table in AC. Such a cautionary tale.

--Hiram

John said...

Agreed

Sean said...

For $2.2T, you could pay off all the student loans in the U.S., plus most of the credit card debt. I'd be willing to bet that would do far more for our economy than the Trump tax plan will.

John said...

Again with that social democracy stuff. Why again should the successful people be taxed to pay other people's bills?

Sean said...

Call me crazy, but if you're going to run up the debt, you may as well do something that's going to benefit a lot of people, as opposed to passing something that's going to give over 80% of the benefit to the top 1%.

John said...

Just a reminder, most of us are still operating under the Bush tax cuts. Where as Obama and the DEMs forced a tax increase for the successful folks in 2012. A lot of their reduction was actually just undoing that increase.

As for what will help who the most... That is beyond my capability of prognosticating. I am pretty sure lowering the corporate tax rate was a very good thing for America.

Sean said...

"A lot of their reduction was actually just undoing that increase."

OK. So what?

"As for what will help who the most... That is beyond my capability of prognosticating."

That's why we have economists!

"I am pretty sure lowering the corporate tax rate was a very good thing for America."

What are your criteria for determining if that in fact turns out to be the case? Because the early returns aren't great. Jobs and wages haven't deviated from their pre-Trump trends. Fixed investment isn't surging.

John said...

The Liberals keep hammering on the "tax reduction" benefitting the wealthy. While everyone else still has the benefit... Seems disingenuous to me.

Please remember that unemployment is very low. That is a good thing.

Sean said...

"Please remember that unemployment is very low. That is a good thing."

It was also very low before the tax cut.

So, again, what are your criteria for determining if the tax cut is a good thing? Or, is it a good thing even if it doesn't produce any tangible benefits?

Sean said...

"The Liberals keep hammering on the "tax reduction" benefitting the wealthy. While everyone else still has the benefit... Seems disingenuous to me."

Why?

Sean said...

More numbers regarding how this tax cut ain't working.

NY Mag: Corporations Invested Their Tax Cuts Into Stock Buybacks That Didn’t Even Work

"S&P 500 companies are on track to repurchase as much as $800 billion in stock this year, a record that would eclipse 2007’s buyback bonanza. Among the biggest buyers are companies like Oracle Corp., Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase JPM 0.33% & Co.

But 57% of the more than 350 companies in the S&P 500 that bought back shares so far this year are trailing the index’s 3.2% increase. ...

And the historic spending spree on share buybacks has some analysts worried companies are buying their shares at excessive valuations during the peak of the economic cycle and at a time when the market rally is nine years old. … The S&P 500 Buyback index, which tracks the share performance of the 100 biggest stock repurchasers, has gained just 1.3% this year, well underperforming the S&P 500."