Highly Regarded, Independent Congressional Research Service Report: GOP Tax Bill is a Scam

Congressional Research Service—which is nonpartisan, independent, and highly-respected—just published a report that dismantles claims that the GOP tax law is doing much good for the economy.

The 2017 tax revision... often referred to as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act....substantially revised the U.S. tax system. The Act permanently reduced the corporate tax rate to 21%... and provided a major revision in the international tax rules. It also substantially revised individual income taxes, including an increase in the standard deduction and child credit largely offset by eliminating personal exemptions, along with rate cuts, limits on itemized deductions.... and a 20% deduction for pass-through businesses....

The only people this benefitted from the above are the super wealthy. We are now more trillions in debt because of it, and it’s the poor who are paying for it, always pay for it and will continue to pay for it.

In 2018, gross domestic product grew at 2.9%, about the Congressional Budget Office's projected rate published in 2017 before the tax cut. On the whole, the growth effects tend to show a relatively small (if any) first-year effect on the economy.

While evidence does indicate significant repurchases of shares, either from tax cuts or repatriated revenues, relatively little was directed to paying worker bonuses, which had been announced by some firms.

There is no indication of a surge in wages in 2018 either compared to history or relative to GDP growth.

Larry Kudlow said the GOP tax law is already nearly fully paying for itself with growth. CRS observed: "5% or less of the growth needed to fully offset the revenue loss from the Act." So Kudlow is only off by 95%.

And the numbers are even worse for the middle-class: "ordinary workers had very little growth in wage rates."

There's lots more in that CRS report, including skepticism about claims that the GOP tax law is doing much to boost capital investment.

I am shocked. Shocked I tell you.

Read more here: https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R45736.html