At USA Today Maria Bartiromo, the only business and economics journalist I know of who’s had a song written about her, analyzes Donald Trump’s economic plan. Her conclusion is that Trump should narrow his focus to the economy:
If he can focus almost exclusively on the economy for the next three months, the answer to your question is yes, he can win this race. If you look over the 50, 60, 70 years, presidents and parties in power don’t get re-elected when you have 1% economic growth.
I don’t think such exercises are worthwhile, whether you’re talking about analyzing Mr. Trump’s economic plan, foreign policy plan, or anything else he proposes. He’s just floating trial balloons. They’re no more meaningful as serious policy proposals than the presidents’ wish lists in State of the Union messages have become.
I want to consider a different question. Why should the United States have a higher corporate income tax rate than other OECD countries? Our higher tax rate makes tax rate arbitrage a viable business plan. Is that in our interests?
The current situation feeds many people, keeps property values at the Hamptons, Jackson Hole, Gold Coast, etc at all time highs and so on.
I still continue to favor eliminating the corporate tax. As Moore noted, can’t believe I am agreeing with Moore, it really doesn’t raise that much tax since corporations don’t pay that much. That said, there is a lot of potential for abuse if you lower or eliminate the corporate tax. I think you could certainly make the case it should not be lowered until we have a more functional Congress. OTOH, that means it would never happen.
Steve
I don’t understand the argument behind the effectiveness of lowering the corporate income if in fact corporations already pay what the new rate would be. Unless the argument is basically to win rhetorical points against big government and regulations and work in more pro-corporation loopholes.
It’s a huge sign of how dead Trump is that he’s relying on crank-turning republican hacks to save him from himself.
Right now businesses are holding enormous gobs of cash offshore to protect it from U. S. taxes. Just the 50 largest companies are holding $1.5 trillion that way. Additionally, there’s been an enormous flap lately about “inversions”—businesses restructuring so that they become, in effect, foreign companies. In the first case the U. S. loses the potential investment. In the second it loses the HQ jobs.
The reason for these shenanigans? U. S. corporate taxes are out-of-step with those of their foreign equivalents. And that doesn’t even get into the inefficiency of the tax.
It would help if Trump’s economic policy wasn’t produced by a million monkeys banging away on type writers.