Former Chief Economist for Vice President Joe Biden appeared MSNBC with Ali Velshi and Stephanie Ruhle to discuss the corporate tax cuts in Trump’s new ‘tax reform’ plan. Jared Bernstein did not allow Conservative American Enterprise Institute’s, Michael Strain, to get away with lying to the American people. Bernstein methodically destroyed the argument Strain made for a corporate tax cut. EPIC!
Ali Velshi forced the panel to get more specific in discussing the relationship between corporate tax cuts and borrowing.
“The president is sent selling this I think somewhat disingenuously as this great boon for job creation,” Ali Velshi said. “Draw me some kind of line, crooked, straight, dotted, dashed, any kind of line between what you can do with the tax code that directly results effectively in the hiring of more people.
A corporate tax cut will not spur job growth
Progressive economist destroys conservative argument for corporate tax cut. pic.twitter.com/Nh14ZnqyyW
— Egberto Willies, Politics Done Right host
(@EgbertoWillies) September 28, 2017
Michael Strain instead spurted out the standard Republican talking points that have been proven false over the last three-plus decades.
“Well, I think the question is whether or not overtime certainly including time periods outside the 10-year budget window, you know, over the next 10, 15, 20-years,” said Michael Strain. “A lower statutory corporate tax rate and a lower statutory tax rate on pass-through businesses increase the incentives for businesses to invest in the United States, to grow or even to form in the first place and whether anyone of that, in turn, increases hiring.”
Jared Bernstein listened uncomfortably and eventually had to set the record straight.
“Hold on, I got to cut through this and just get to the nub of it,” Jared Berstein interjected forcefully. “Our corporations are more profitable than they’ve ever been. They’re literally sitting on over two trillion dollars of retained earnings. That’s cash on hand. If they wanted to invest it, they could. If they wanted to borrow more, they could at very cheap rates. So this idea that you somehow have to bribe our corporations into investing more by cutting their rates further when they’re already crushing it just doesn’t seem to match the set of economic facts about how well the corporate sector is performing already.”
It is essential that at every turn we do not allow the Right Wing lies crafted and perfectly encapsulated in soundbites are given the time to metastasize into manufactured truth. It takes vigilance, acute listening, and discipline along with continuous research to fight back against this type of disinformation. The fact is that there is ample proof that a corporate tax cut does not boost employment.
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