Sunday, September 16, 2018

Election Thoughts 2018: The Tax Bill And Congress (Part 3)


This election is too important to ignore. So, I am writing a series of posts on topics to consider as you think about who to vote for in November. I am specifically staying away from Trump and social topics. This series is about serious issues and the congress members involved with them. That is the focus, congress. Topics include:

1. Religious Education
2. Capitalism
3. The Tax Bill (the part congress played in it)
4. Healthcare
5. SNAP
6. Government Assistance (Other)
7. Where Democrats Stand
8. GOTV and Nancy
 

I have been collecting these articles throughout the year. The part in green is a direct quote from the article in the link before or after it. I also very specifically stuck to reliable news sources. Actual fact based news sources like Politico, CBS News, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The LA Times and others.

The Tax Bill And Congress:



1.       Almost anything helpful to the poor, middle class, and those whole think they are rich but aren’t expire in 2025. Any positive you might see now goes away and taxes get a lot more expensive in 2025.

2.       All about corporations. Republicans make the argument that it will “trickle down to employees”. Only in companies that need the government to approve something to benefit them! Almost everyone will see money go to stockholders and/or executives only. Raises are not in the future.

3.       It added to the deficit. So many Republican voters for years complained about the deficit. Will this bother them? Hypocrites if it doesn’t. You aren't "fiscally conservative" if you still support Republicans after this!






What could be more dangerous for American workers, economists said, is that the bill ends up creating a tax break for manufacturers with foreign operations. Under the new rules, beyond the lower rate, companies will not have to pay United States taxes on the money they earn from plants or equipment located abroad, if those earnings amount to 10 percent or less of the total investment.

Some companies did give some of their tax savings to workers. Because they know they need the employees to vote Republican. The only way to do that is to share the wealth so people think it’s a great tax bill.
 
But, these voters aren’t reading the fine print. One time bonuses aren’t pay raises. The few companies that did raise wages had to. The already improving economy meant good workers were able to leave and get paid better elsewhere. To keep those employees, wages had to rise. A result of the economic improvement from before, not because of the tax cuts.

It reminds me of a joke my brother used to tell. There is a flood and a man is on his roof. A guy comes by on a boat offering to save him. The man on the roof turns him away. “God will save me”. Then someone comes by on a helicopter. Again he turns that person away. “God will save me”.

So he dies. He asks God “why didn’t you save me?” God responded “I did try to save you! I sent you the guy on the boat and the person in the helicopter!”

Non-ultra-rich republican voters are the man on the roof. Democrats are the man in the boat and the person in the helicopter. Voting against your own interests will just make things worse in the long run. Many know it’s against their own interests but vote Republican anyway.

I want to ask these voters who vote against their own interests, what is it republicans are offering you? What policies do they agree with? How are the laws they are creating making your life better? It boils down to social issues. These voters care more about banning abortions and same sex marriage then about being able to get their disabled child affordable healthcare. It's the choice they are making with their votes. It is ridiculous to make it so that child cannot get health insurance because of a pre-existing condition just because you are homophobic. Yet many are doing exactly that.

These are the people that would fare better with the Democrat proposed living wage. The reason, those raises trickle up. When the lowest earn more, those above them on the pay scale earn more too. Many studies have proven this. A one-time bonus isn’t going to improve your life. Saying you will vote republican because of that bonus is telling the person there to save you “God will save me”. The man on the roof was foolish. He made a bad decision and died because of it. Vote Democrat because they have your best interest in mind. They care about customers and employees. Republicans only care about the employers.

“Certainly, a lot of what you’re seeing is bonuses, rather than wages. It’s a one-time thing — you don’t have to do it again. It’s political, obviously. It’s P.R.,” said Jim O’Sullivan, the chief United States economist at High Frequency Economics.

Politicians will make no such distinctions, of course. But workers might be able to guess if wage gains are in their future, at least a little bit, by reading the fine print of corporate announcements. If companies announce new projects, initiatives or capital investments — anything that might boost worker productivity — wage increases could follow.

Not because companies are dying to share their tax spoils with workers. But because they have to, or those workers will take a job with another company that will. (quote from article below)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/us/politics/bonuses-tax-laws-trump-impact.html

 
The recent stock market rumpus has been set off in part by fears that a tight labor market and quickening wage growth are a foretaste of higher inflation and interest rates. But sustained raises for American workers may be possible only if employers can break a habit: handing out one-time bonuses in place of salary increases.
A growing preference among employers for one-time awards instead of raises that keep building over time has been quietly transforming the employment landscape for two decades. But it was accelerated by the recession’s intensity, which made employers especially cautious about increasing labor costs.

The stream of companies announcing bonuses for their employees in the wake of the newly minted tax cuts is just the latest expression of the trend.

This little-noticed shift in how employers compensate workers could also help explain one of the economy’s most persistent puzzles: why a hot labor market has failed to ignite bigger increases in wages.

There has been “a continuing dramatic shift in the mix of compensation,” Aon Hewitt, the human resources consulting firm, noted last summer in its latest annual survey of company pay practices.

In 2017, one-time payments consumed 12.7 percent to those budgets; raises amounted to just 2.9 percent.
“Pressure to increase productivity and minimize costs,” the report concluded, had pushed employers to forgo raises and rely more on short-term awards “as the primary means of rewarding for performance.”

Ordinarily, the jobless rate and wage growth are like two ends of a seesaw: When one drops, the other is supposed to rise. But that link seems broken, and like film-noir detectives, analysts have scrutinized hard-edge statistics and fuzzier psychological indicators for clues about why.

In the recession that began a decade ago, the businesses most likely to survive tended to be the most conservative spenders, said Douglas G. Duncan, the chief economist at Fannie Mae. That approach was rewarded and has now been reinforced, he said, helping to restrain the growth of full-time work forces and salaries.

The reasons for sluggish wage growth, of course, are a complex weave. Declining unionization, noncompete contracts, tepid minimum-wage increases, globalization and sluggish productivity have all played a role.

Whatever the cause, the consequences can be profound. Salary increases compound over time, offering greater financial security. Moreover, bonuses have not made up for wage stagnation. The inflation-adjusted median income of men working full time was lower in 2016 than it was in 1973. And their lifetime earnings — which include salary, wages, bonuses and exercised stock options — have mostly dropped since then. 
 
Most bonuses still come in traditional forms: payoffs for executive-suite occupants and deal hunters, or sweeteners for newly hired employees. Certain industries, like finance and insurance, with their longer tradition of year-end and performance-based rewards, continue to have much bigger bonus budgets than sectors like retail.


Those raises the Republicans promised you in the tax bill? They are now a one-time bonus. It’s great to get that money in an election year. But, It’s only that once. I thought what you really needed was a raise? Democrats want to raise the minimum wage. They want to force these companies to pay you more. So you can afford the basics and not have to do without so much. Republicans just want your votes. So they let companies appease you with the one-time bonus. But, that won’t help with your financial issues in the future.


 To me, I look at how the republicans in congress are passing these things without caring about paying for them and think “HYPOCRITES!” During Obama’s presidency republicans in congress and republican voters made a big deal out of the deficit (then shrinking). Suddenly, you get a republican president and debt doesn’t matter? Every one of you that said “we should pay our bills.” Then and now say “I consider congress fiscally responsible.” What changed? Oh, right, a republican president now. So, all of that moral high ground “be responsible and pay your debts” talk was……what? Was it your inner rebellious teenager, hidden racism, a lack of understanding of how economics work or all of the above?



 

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