- Marco should be closer to Larry Kudlow
- Remembering his eminence Paul Krugman
Sen. Marco Rubio thinks the GOP tax plan helps corporations too much
CNBC relates to business economics better than its parent outlet, appropriately they seem to suppl a hint of incredulity in what they included with their report. From the article:
The Florida Republican told the News-Press of Fort Myers that corporations will largely use their major tax cut to buy back shares or increase dividends to shareholders — which “isn’t going to create dramatic economic growth.”
“If I were king for a day, this tax bill would have looked different. I thought we probably went too far on (helping) corporations,” Rubio told the newspaper in the interview published Friday. “By and large, you’re going to see a lot of these multinationals buy back shares to drive up the price. Some of them will be forced, because they’re sitting on historic levels of cash, to pay out dividends to shareholders.”
“That isn’t going to create dramatic economic growth. (But) there’s a lot of things in the bill that I have supported for a long time (such as) doubling the Child Tax Credit. And it is better — significantly better — than the current code,” he continued.
The tax plan that President Donald Trump signed into law last week permanently chops the corporate tax to 21 percent from 35 percent. . . . At least a dozen companies — including mammoth employers like AT&T and Boeing — announced plans to raise their minimum wages, increase capital investment or hand out employee bonuses after the plan’s passage. While Republicans have cheered those announcements, some critics of the corporate tax cut have maintained most of those benefits will likely go to shareholders rather than workers.
During the Senate tax debate, Rubio proposed expanding the credit and paying for it by cutting the corporate tax rate by less than the GOP initially intended.
To its credit CNBC provided an effective video response from Larry Kudlow who is also dismissive of Rubio’s politics. Give it a few seconds to load. Our comment follows.
We would add (as we have before)
Money is fungible. Corporations that distribute such money in the form of stock buybacks or whatever they do with it here, will still ultimately cause more money to be invested as their investors now reinvest their gains from the transfers, investing in other companies or start-ups. Even banking it provides fund availability to other companies and star-ups for loans. If owners spend it – heaven forbid – increasing consumption means the suppliers / producers of that consumption continue the multiplication of economic activity “growing” the economy. That is the result of more money in the hands of people instead of the waste of government. Whether or not corporations expand their own businesses it can’t help but help directly or indirectly.
Then there is good ol’ Paul “Karl” Krugman (Daily Caller report)
Paul Krugman Says Markets Will ‘Never’ Recover From Trump; Dow Hits Record High
New York Times opinion writer and economist Paul Krugman predicted early Wednesday morning that the stock market will “never” recover from Donald Trump’s presidential victory, only to be proven spectacularly wrong in less than a day. Instead of collapsing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged to an all-time high shortly before the closing bell.
Futures markets imploded Tuesday night as soon as it became apparent Trump was likely to win. At their nadir, futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average had dropped 750 points.
At that point, Krugman chose to release a blog post in which he predicted these jitters represented a new permanent reality in the U.S. economy.
“It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover?” Krugman said in his post. “If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.”
“We are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight,” he added. “I suppose we could get lucky somehow. But on economics, as on everything else, a terrible thing has just happened.”
But Krugman’s forecast that the markets would “never” recover took just nine hours to be proven totally wrong. Come Wednesday morning, the fever had almost entirely broken in the U.S. Instead of dropping by 10 percent or more, as some predicted, the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 all rose by more than a percent. Later in the day, the Dow briefly surged above its all-time closing high, before ending the day just a few points below it. The Dow finished the day up about 257 points overall.
The rapid whiplash was similar to the response to the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom last summer. British markets originally swooned as some experts predicted economic devastation, but within a week they had recovered and surged to new highs.
Marco says, “If I were king for a day, this tax bill would have looked different.”
Gene says, If I were a carpenter and you were a lady…” We both said, Bupkis.
It’s possible to read to much into a statement, which, upon reading into it reveals nothing. Words on a page, words in the air, but no substance. Listen, or not, you have the same. These guys have to say something every day to some reporter. They parse their words so that after listening to a 5 minute speech you say, “Hmm, what did he even say?”
Look not at what he said, look at what he did. He got his 5 minutes of glory and then voted FOR the tax bill. What the hell do I care about his wish list was or his reservations are.
Fair point. It’s just that his reservations are balderdash
Listen as Spock explains Rubio’s speech. https://youtu.be/xEm-6lYMgCI
As Gene notes, Rubio ended up voting for the tax bill…very important: “What the hell do I care about his wish list was or his reservations are”. Unfortunately, however, Senator Rubio’s “words” are also important. His comments, were they spoken by Chuck Schumer could be dismissed as just more hyper-partisan b.s., the only thing that Chuckie is truly accomplished at.
In Mr. Rubio’s case, though, it casts the debate in an entirely different light. As a Wall Street Journal editorial pointed out, fake news networks gleefully picked up Marco’s comments as “proof that the left was right all along that the bill is for the wealthy”.
Thus making it harder for “Republicans to persuade Americans that the law is good policy”…something dynamic orators like Mitch McConnell have difficulty with anyway.
Rubio’s imperial comments (“if I were King”) also reflect, as the Journal said, “a lack of economic understanding”.
Words do matter…and good policy must be sold by sound communication.In my view, Senator Rubio often does great harm with his posturing, frequently sounding like an audition to succeed McCain as the ‘rebel looking for a cause…or a headline’.