Trump continues to tout his tax cut scam as a success. He claims he provided relief for the middle-class. Robert Reich’s most recent article blows up that lie with the numbers and the real beneficiaries. And you know what. It ain’t you.
Donald Trump fooled a lot of people, and while the tax cut scam was unpopular, many seem to not object to it as forcefully as they should have. One must not forget that soon after he got his bill passed he bragged to the wealthy folks at Mar-a-Lago that he made them a lot of money.
Robert Reich’s article “Trump’s Shareholder Bonanza,” says it all.
The evidence is in: The biggest beneficiaries of the Trump-Republican tax plan are shareholders. Yesterday, Bank of America Brian Moynihan said that “most of the benefits” from the tax cuts “will flow to the bottom-line through dividends and share buybacks over time.” Exactly. Dividends and share buybacks boost share prices. And that’s all corporate America wants to do.
Moynihan noted that in 2017, Bank of America had $16.6 billion of net income available to shareholders and returned $16.8 billion through dividends and buyback. “So, yes, we will expect to return more capital to shareholders given the tax [cut].” Even the expectation of a big corporate tax cut have caused shares to soar. Because the richest 1 percent of Americans owns 40 percent of all shares of stock, and the richest fifth owns 80 percent, this is great news for the wealthy. It’s not great news for anyone else.
Read the entire article with the corroborating link.
We should all be channeling Dave Chappelle’s latest monologue. He lays it out perfectly for those who believe that Trump is in Washington on some populist mission that will make their lives better. It is a must watch as Chappelle articulate the reality as only he can.