( Editor’s note: during Don’s absence, please enjoy our guest editorial)
President Trump and the GOP Congress scored a significant victory through the passage of the tax cut/reform legislation, which was signed Friday.
The legislation had four major components: lowering corporate tax rates from the highest in the developed world to around the world’s average; encouraging the repatriation of more than $4 trillion in overseas profits made by U.S. corporations that the old tax code punitively re-taxed at the regular 35% tax level in spite of the fact overseas taxes had already been paid; lowering individual taxes for between 80 and 90 percent of individuals and ending the individual mandate effective January 1, 2019.
Workers in some large companies are already seeing the benefits of the corporate tax cuts as 200,000 domestic AT&T workers will each receive a $1,000 bonus after the bill is signed, the telecom company will also invest an additional billion dollars in U.S. infrastructure.
Wells Fargo announced that they will raise their starting hourly wage for workers up to $15 an hour in March of 2018. Regional bank FifthThird Bancorp also announced they were increasing their internal minimum wage to $15 an hour and gave a $1000 bonus to 13,000 employees.
Not to be outdone, media giant Comcast will be giving $1000 bonuses as well as investing more than $50 billion over the next five years in infrastructure, media businesses, and theme parks in light of both the tax cut and the FCC’s decision to end net neutrality.
And that is just four companies pouring money that would have been wasted in Washington, D.C. into real people’s pockets and even more importantly into growing their businesses, creating more high demand jobs.
Repatriation of these overseas profits are estimated to generate more than $50 billion in tax revenue for 2018 alone. More important than the short-term tax revenue created, trillions of dollars will be infused into U.S. multi-nationals to clean up balance sheets, invest, pay dividends, raise pay and yes, even build new plants and operations here in the U.S. Trillions of dollars of new capital used by private decision-makers based on their internal plans to grow their businesses starting in 2018.
Under the legislation, even the Democrats’ favorite tax think tank, the Tax Policy Center, reports that in 2018, 80 percent of the American public will get a tax cut, and about 15 percent will have no significant change.
While it would be preferred that everyone in America who pays taxes, keep more in their pockets, overall, a vast majority of working Americans will see the benefits immediately in their paychecks assuming they adjust their withholdings accordingly at the beginning of the year.
President Donald Trump and the GOP Congress understood the fundamental truth that it is your money the government takes out of your paycheck, while the Democrats argue that tax cuts are immoral because they take away some of what they believe is the government’s money.
And that is the fundamental question in the tax debate, whose money is it? If you believe that you should make the choices on how the money you earn from working each day should be spent, you should be happy with the bill. If you think that you should be grateful for any money the government allows you to keep, then you have succumbed to the philosophy that you are effectively a slave to the government.
The fourth part of the tax bill is the repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate effective January 1, 2019. More than six and a half million Americans are paying just under $500 a year for the privilege of not purchasing health insurance. Millions more are compelled by the federal government to buy health insurance under threat of penalty. In 2019, the choice on whether to purchase health insurance or not will be restored to the individual.
America’s economy will continue to prosper due to the Trump/GOP Congress tax cut bill. A vast majority of Americans will also get extra in their paychecks due to the bill. Some victories are symbolic, but this tax bill will mean that millions more Americans are working with higher wages and greater opportunities for the future.
Passage of the 2017 tax cut bill is one more step toward fulfilling President Trump’s promise to make America great again.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
