Alternative Visions – Massive Corporate Tax Cuts Coming -Again – 08.04.17

Multi-trillion dollar corporate and investor tax cuts by December have moved to the top of the Republican Congress-Trump legislative agenda. Dr. Rasmus puts the proposals in historical context, describing the corporate-investor tax cuts from Reagan through Clinton and GW Bush to Obama and now Trump. From the $750 billion Reagan bill in 1981-82 to Bush’s $3.7 trillion to Bush-Obama $480 billion in 2008-09 to Obama’s $1.245 trillion in 2010-12 and Obama’s continuation of the Bush tax cuts in 2013 for another decade that cost $5 trillion.  Corporate-investor tax cutting as an essential element of Neoliberal economic policy since 1978. How Congress alternates between nominal tax rate reduction and token tax loophole reduction, then raises nominal tax rates and expands tax loopholes.  How for 40 years the share of total taxes paid by corporations and wealthy household investors has declined, while the share of taxes for working and middle class has accelerated. The key elements of the Trump-Ryan tax proposals to date are reviewed.

 

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