Trump, Republicans & Crony Capitalism

The Republican Party Is Broken

Supply-side Jesus

Trump's Tax Cuts: Reshaping The Economy For The Worse.

We're beginning to see how this giveaway to the rich will destabilize markets, increase deficits/debt, increase borrowing costs, cause a reduction in services and/or an increase in other taxes or fees.

The money has to come from somewhere. This is a society we are running here, people. Polices, road, bridges, air, water, schools, hospitals, buses, trains, airports ... paying for it is the bedrock of living in a society. 

If our current society has benefited a select few with the means to own yachts, jets, multiple homes and on and on, those select few can afford to return the favor to society by paying more in taxes to help the society continue to thrive and flourish. 

We cannot continue to poison the planet and pretend it's going to work out for the better. Continual deregulation only helps polluters and financial swindlers. We cannot continue to believe the mythology that is supply-side economics. Since, Republicans dropped this turd of an idea on society in the late 70s, early 80s, income inequality has risen, workers' rights have declined and wages have stagnated. Power to the people? More like, power taken from the people.

So sad to see a helpless country strong-armed by the will of such ignorance, led by a blow-dried, burnt, slovenly buffoon. 

For Further Reading.

Are Trump's tax cuts backfiring on Wall Street?

TRUMP'S TAX CUTS, FEAR OF EXPLODING DEFICITS AND THE TRUTH ABOUT THE U.S. NATIONAL DEBT

“IT’S A PONZI SCHEME”: WALL STREET FEARS TRUMP’S DERANGED TAX PLAN COULD KICK OFF ECONOMIC EUTHANASIA

How the Trump Tax Cuts Would Reshape (and/or Break) Our Economy

U.S. tax plan could cause sugar high, then economic slump

How The Federal Reserve Could Rain On Trump’s Tax Cut Parade

Tax Cuts, Growth and Debt

IMF chief warns Trump's tax cuts could destabilise global economy

Weekend Reading

Trump Again Sues Over Property Tax Bill For Jupiter Golf Course
The U.S. Can No Longer Hide From Its Deep Poverty Problem
Good News: Wages Are Up
Experts Say This Is The Ideal Retirement Savings Timeline
The U.S. Drops Out Of The Top 10 In Innovation Ranking
The Right Question About Inequality And Growth
A New Map For America
An Unwelcome Tax Surprise Could Soon Lurk In Your Paycheck
Big Money Rules
President Trump's First Year, In 14 Metrics
Kansas Provides Compelling Evidence Of Failure Of "Supply-Side" Tax Cuts

Midweek Reading

Solidarity's End. Neil Gorsuch is giving conservatives the chance to virtually destroy American unions.
More people were arrested last year over pot than for murder, rape, aggravated assault and robbery - combined.
Republicans propose tax cut plan to give more money to wealthy contributors.
Yellen's masterful bond-market puppet show.
Washington Post news article argues it is better to tax work than vacant property in London.
Three important points about the Republican tax plan.
I helped create the GOP tax myth. Trump is wrong: tax cuts don't equal growth.
How to make 500-year storms happen every year.
Supply-siders still push what doesn't work.
Why American workers pay twice as much in taxes as wealthy investors.

Sunday Reading

Why Private Equity Firms Like Bain Really Are The Worst Of Capitalism
Supply-Siders Still Push What Doesn't Work
The U.S Is The Sick Man Of The Developed World
Celebrating Greenspan's Legacy Of Failure
More Minimum Wage Distraction, Stuart Varney Edition
John McCain Is The Perfect American Lie
30 Firms Earn Half Of The Total Profit Made By All U.S. Public Companies
S&P 500's Biggest Pension Plans Face $382 Billion Funding Gap
Democrats Are Finally Waking Up To The Monopoly Problem
A New Deal For Wall Street

The Kansas Experiment: Another Supply-Side Failure

Greedy Bastards That Don't Give A Shit About Society

Laboratories of Democracy

The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Scott Walker's Incompetence

Gov. Scott Walker Holds Down Gas Tax - And Growth

In violation of conservative "pro-market" economic principles, Gov. Scott Walker has once again decided that Wisconsin's gasoline tax will not be raised. Instead, to finance road maintenance and repair, he prefers to borrow $850 million, adding that amount to the state's debt. Since even this large amount of borrowing will not be sufficient to finance the projects being planned for the coming year, he says that some will have to be slowed down or not even begun.

Walker Mismanagement/Ineptitude Continues

Highway project delays rack up $700 million cost overruns

While some of these increases come from faulty cost estimates or unavoidable inflation, the new figures underline the obvious: Delays can be costly for Wisconsin taxpayers. When projects are paused because of financial challenges in the state's road fund, the price of materials, labor and real estate can rise... 

The four major highway projects were each delayed for one year because last summer Gov. Scott Walker and GOP lawmakers couldn't settle on an approach to paying for them... 

Refusing to back increases to the gasoline tax or vehicle registration fees last year, Walker settled on bonding as the solution to the state's transportation funding woes, asking $1.3 billion in borrowing to fund the state's transportation projects while freezing state borrowing for most other needs.

Republican legislators pushed back, ultimately lowering the borrowing to $850 million. 

"He'll say that he hasn't increased taxes, but he's certainly pushed the cost of these projects onto the state credit card, and it's going to cost people a lot more," said Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee), a member of the Transportation Projects Commission. "Whoever comes in after him is going to have a complete mess on their hands."

Republican Beliefs And Other Superstitions

Republicans subscribe to the disproven Trickle Down hypothesis:

An economic idea which states that decreasing marginal and capital gains tax rates - especially for corporations, investors and entrepreneurs - can stimulate production in the overall economy. According to trickle-down theory proponents, this stimulus leads to economic growth and wealth creation that benefits everyone, not just those who pay the lower tax rates. 

President Reagan's economic policies, commonly referred to as "Reaganomics" or supply-side economics, were based on trickle-down theory. The idea is that with a lower tax burden and increased investment, business can produce (or supply) more, increasing employment and worker pay. Reagan initially slashed the top income-tax rate from 70% to 50%. Trickle-down policy’s detractors see the policy as tax cuts for the rich and don’t think the tax cuts benefit lower-income earners. 

A contrasting theory, Keynesianism, is based on stimulating demand through government spending and other government interventions. An increase in government spending necessitates an increase in income-tax rates – the opposite of what trickle-down theory advocates. Trickle-down theory does not support government intervention in the economy. 

According to the trickle-down theory, if tax rates are lower, people have an incentive to work more because they get to keep more of the income they earn. They then spend or invest that income, and either of these activities will improve everyone’s prosperity, not just the prosperity of those in the highest income brackets. What’s more, in the end, the government may actually collect more income tax despite the lower tax rates because of the additional work performed. The Laffer Curve shows how this relationship works. If the government taxes 0% of income or 100% of income, it takes in no money. In between these two extremes, tax revenues vary because different tax rates encourage people to work more or to take more leisure time.

Conservatives want society, as a whole, to allow the rich to "keep more of their money." Riches are then supposed to trickle down to the rest of society. When it doesn't trickle down 1) the citizens are uneducated, 2) the citizens aren't properly trained, 3) technology is replacing workers, and/or 4) the citizens are just lazy.

Larry Summers recently addressed these falsities:

The core problem is that there aren't enough jobs. If you help some people, you could help them get the jobs, but then someone else won't get the jobs. Unless you're doing things that have things that are effecting the demand for jobs, you're helping people win a race to get a finite number of jobs. […] 

Folks, wage inflation in the united states is 2%. It has not gone up in five years. There are not 3% of the economy where there's any evidence of hyper wage inflation of a kind that would go with worker shortages. The idea that you can just have better training and then there are all these jobs, all these places where there are shortages and we just need the train people is fundamentally an evasion. [...] 

I am concerned that if we allow the idea to take hold, that all we need to do is there are all these jobs with skills and if we can just train people a bit, then they'll be able to get into them and the whole problem will go away. I think that is fundamentally an evasion of a profound social challenge.

Timothy Taylor elaborates on the decline in on-the-job training:

Here's some evidence from the recently released 2015 Economic Report of the President, by the Council of Economic Advisers, showing a decline in employer-provided and on-the-job training in recent decades...

Looking at the overall pattern, a decline in employer-sponsored and on-the-job training suggest that workers who wish to keep building their skills are getting less support from their employers.

Here again we have more Republican beliefs shown to be nothing more than self-serving blather and bullshit.

Wisconsin Budget Shortfall At Nearly $1.8 Billion

Wisconsin state budget shortfall projected at nearly $1.8 billion

Wisconsin Employment Doldrums

From Econobrowser, "Following up on last Thursday’s post, here is a depiction of how Wisconsin and Kansas — ALEC darlings — fare against Minnesota and California." [source]

Figure 1: Log nonfarm payroll employment for Wisconsin (red), Minnesota (blue), California (teal), Kansas (green) and the US (black), all seasonally adjusted, 2011M01=0. Vertical dashed line at beginning of terms for indicated governors. Source: BLS, and author’s calculations.

The Widest Income Gap Since The Roaring 20s

Tax Cuts Have Been Bad For The Middle Class

7 Biggest Economic Lies

[source]

Tea Party Inspiration & Republican Pioneer Of Batshit: Ronald Reagan

The George W. Bush Presidency Was Really Bad