The Media Actually Predicted That The Trump Tax Cuts Wouldn't Increase Wages for Workers
Many in the media who predicted the Republican tax reform law would have no real impact on Americans’ wages now have egg on their faces, with a video record showing just how wrong they were.
The Washington Free Beacon compiled clips of various media personalities expressing their skepticism that regular working families would benefit from tax cuts to corporations, followed by corresponding news reports of company after company issuing bonuses, discrediting all the media’s previous naysaying claims.
“It feels like you’re relying on this tax cut of the corporations and the wealthy to trickle down,” MSNBC reporter Katy Tur said.
“And anybody who thinks that this corporate tax cut is going to trickle down to lift wages has a staggering ignorance of how public companies function,” MSNBC commentator Steve Schmidt declared.
“Who says that giving corporations more money will increase wages?” CNN anchor Chris Cuomo asked.
“There are no examples anywhere of companies distributing their tax savings to their workers,” MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi said.
NBC’s Today host, Savannah Guthrie queried House Speaker Paul Ryan, “I’ll ask you plainly, are you living in a fantasy world?”
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act specifically benefited companies by lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent (the highest in the industrialized world) to 21 percent.
Ryan, President Donald Trump and other advocates argued before the bill’s passage, lowering the tax rate would spur economic growth and encourage companies to locate or expand their businesses in the U.S.
What they did not foresee was the immediate positive impact lowering corporate rates would have on American workers.
According to a growing list being kept by Americans for Tax Reform, over 2 million Americans will be receiving special bonuses from their employers.
While House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called the payouts “pathetic” and “crumbs” compared to the benefits corporations are receiving, Ryan could barely contain his enthusiasm on Thursday while touting the positive benefits of the law.
“You know, today marks 20 days since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act became the law of the land,” Ryan told reporters on Capitol Hill. “Already, this new law is helping to improve the lives of middle-income families across the country.”
As an example, the speaker referenced Walmart’s announcement earlier in the day that the retailer is raising its U.S. minimum wage from $9 to $11 per hour and issuing up to $1,000 bonuses to employees as a result of the lower corporate tax rates. The nation’s largest private employer also plans to expand maternity and parental leave benefits.
By the top House Republican’s calculation, over $1.5 billion in bonuses are being paid out.
He added that power companies in a number of states are lowering their rates, which is particularly helpful in the depths of winter.
The Washington Examiner reported that they include some of the nation’s largest providers serving millions of Americans such as Commonwealth Power, Pacific Power, Rocky Mountain Power, and Pepco, as well as Arizona Power Service and New England based Eversource.
“All of this has happened in just 20 days,” Ryan reiterated. “So think about this, this is all before families have even begun to see the benefits of lower tax rates, better withholding and a higher standard deduction.”
At his first Cabinet meeting of 2018 on Wednesday, Trump hit on some similar notes as Ryan.
“Since that tax cut was enacted more than one million workers have received a tax cut bonus. Something that frankly no one even thought about,” he said. “We just knew a lot of good things were going to happen.”
“I must say AT&T was the first one, and they did it, $1,000 per employee,” he added. “They have hundreds of thousands of employees. And many companies followed immediately thereafter. Millions of employees in this country are getting $1,000 and more in some cases. Tax bonuses because of the tax cuts.”
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