Trump breaks what should have been an easy promise to keep

If there is one tax reform measure that 99% of the American public can agree on is to not give tax subsidies to companies that offshore American jobs overseas.
This tax break for sending away jobs was signed into law by Bush in 2004.
Democrats are actively proposing a bill to reverse the loophole right now.
The reform is so common sense popular that Trump promised to do this repeatedly.

In a series of tweets Sunday morning, Trump pledged to lower corporate taxes across the board. But he also said he would charge a hefty 35% tax for "any business that leaves our country for another country, fires its employees, [or] builds a new factory or plant in the other country, and ... sell[s] its product back into the U.S."
Trump argued that those companies deserve "retribution." He said businesses that want to offshore jobs have been "forewarned."

Criticism of the bill includes a) it wouldn't bring in much revenue, and b) it wouldn't stop companies from offshoring jobs.
To which my response is: So?
The point is not subsidize the offshoring of jobs.

Surely President Trump the populist can see the wisdom in pushing for this easy win, right?

In fact, we’ve tried this experiment. Back in 2004, we allowed multinationals to repatriate deferred earnings at a sweetheart rate of 5 percent. They said they’d invest and create jobs with the money, but instead, they laid workers off and shared the tax break with their shareholders.

In other words, the shift to territoriality does not dampen the existing incentives in our corporate code to offshore jobs. It exacerbates them, which will lead to more overseas production and the loss of jobs here at home. As tax professor Rebecca Kysar observed: a “pressing goal of tax reform is to reduce the incentives for companies to move their operations overseas. [This] bill does the opposite.”

Interestingly, the tax writers recognized the problem and tried to fix it with a tax penalty for transfer pricing. The alleged patch incentivizes even more offshoring, creating, according to New York Times reporter Patricia Cohen, “new opportunities for small and medium-size firms to use tax havens to slice their tax rate in half.”

Will this be the final step that will break the cult-like faith in Trump by Trump supporters?
Surely they can't rationalize this.

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travelerxxx's picture

Will this be the final step that will break the cult-like faith in Trump by Trump supporters?
Surely they can't rationalize this.

Wanna bet?

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The Aspie Corner's picture

@travelerxxx And they are willing to suck dick for packing peanuts if it means they can watch groups of people they're told to hate suffer.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

divineorder's picture

Spreading of fake news. Millions follow Trumps daughter-in -law produced news with glam guests on Facebook and the commenters thank God for Him and his historic works MAGA !!!! Get the real news on the tax bill and join the calls to Congress Lara is cheerleading for: Middle Class Miracle ! / snark.

His hard core fans ain't going nowhere.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

detroitmechworks's picture

I'm pretty sure that Trump has decided that at this point you're either with him or against him, and no further actions can be done to influence the people.

However, Rich Corporations are very happy to embrace anybody who makes them MOAH MONEY!!!!

Expect a LOT more corporate giveaways, starting with the internet.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

divineorder's picture

@detroitmechworks he is still out to gain/reinforce supporters:

https://www.salon.com/2017/11/22/lara-trump-is-building-a-propaganda-ope...

Trump has been officially running for re-election since Jan. 20, the day he was sworn into office. (It's amusing to re-read the conservative Weekly Standard's tut-tutting against then-president Barack Obama when he filed for re-election in April of 2011, more than two years after he took office.)

Trump's disturbingly early filing has allowed him to continue holding campaign rallies from the beginning of his presidency, something no other president has done before. It has also allowed him to continue making campaign commercials in the Trump team's favorite medium: Facebook.

Some of the Facebook clips have been conventional political spots, but others have been something very different, essentially state-sponsored propaganda videos glorifying the president while pretending to be an actual newscast. They also appear to be tailored to Facebook's admitted strategy of favoring video content, in the hopes that doing so will keep people from leaving the cesspool of misinformation that dominates the social network. Given Trump's long history of lying, and lashing out at journalists for pointing out his many deceptions, it's unsurprising that the clips in question are released to Trump's Facebook fans as "Real News Updates."

The series received some media attention after they debuted in August, but since then, the only people watching have been Trump's 22.8 million devoted Facebook fans. And they seem to love them, watching many clips more than a million times and leaving thousands of worshipful comments.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

travelerxxx's picture

@divineorder

the clips in question are released to Trump's Facebook fans as "Real News Updates." .... the only people watching have been Trump's 22.8 million devoted Facebook fans.

Dusting myself off here after falling off the turnip truck, I guess. Not being a Facebook kinda dude, I had no idea this even existed.

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To complain about corporate taxes is not what the democratic party establishment is going to do. Will sound too much like Sanders. As for outsourcing of any kind, democrats are in league with all the major high tech companies doing it. Bernie released a video of SoS Clinton in India reassuring people at one of her speeches that outsourcing will continue and not to worry.

Women's March activists organized on April 15 protests demanding Trump's taxes. I watch streaming video of several marches and nada about tax reform and fairness.

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edg's picture

Where's the beef? I don't see anything in this essay that either says Trump will veto the Dem bill or that he actively pushed for the transfer tax. So what't the point here?

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I'm not sure I agree that taking any governmental action against huge, multinational corporations is "easy." We are all familiar with the Princeton study a few years ago that found that public opinion, as measured by polling, has near ZERO effect on policy.

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