Month: October 2017

Democrats want lower corporate taxes just not under Trump

Democrats want lower corporate taxes just not under Trump

Don’t let the current partisan bickering on corporate taxes make it seem like both sides of the aisle don’t want this. It is good for America and everyone that understands economics understands this. The issue is that when the Democrats held power, they couldn’t effectively do this because their liberal wing (i.e. the people that do not understand economics) would crucify them in the election booth.

Suddenly, an idea that has been accepted by economists and by policymakers on both sides of the political aisle—that high taxes on business hurt investment, workers, and the economy—is considered “absurd.”

In 2012, President Obama and his advisers proposed lowering the corporate tax rate because it “creates good jobs with good wages for the middle-class folks who work at those businesses.” In 2013, Lawrence Summers, President Clinton’s Treasury secretary and chairman of Mr. Obama’s Economic Council, argued that the tax on corporate profits creates a burden without commensurate revenues for the government and that changing it “is as close to a free lunch as tax reformers will ever get.”

In 2015, Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican Rob Portman co-sponsored a Senate bill to reduce the top corporate tax rate, which is the highest of any of the 35 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. “Our international tax system,” Mr. Schumer argued back then, “creates incentives to send jobs and stash profits overseas, rather than creating jobs and economic growth here in the United States.” Bill Clinton in 2016 said he regretted raising the corporate rate to its current level.

Yet President Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers is now being accused of partisanship and unscientific analysis.

This is politics for the sake of politics. Not for making America stronger or helping our citizens.

Source: A Turnabout on Corporate Taxes