How many times will we be duped by Reagan-type tax cuts?

It never seems to fail.

The GOP tax law passed in 2017 was supposed to super charge the economy, but the lack of major impact is spurring critics to renew their attacks against the signature measure from President Trump.

Republicans said the tax law would help the economy through several avenues, including by sending business investment soaring. But just 15 months after it took effect, business investment has actually been contracting, falling 1 percent and 3 percent in the past two quarters.

  The Hill

When has that EVER worked?

Republicans who supported the tax law are blaming Trump's trade war with China as the reason why it failed to have the intended impact.

That's the build-up to doing it again.  Blame thee failure on something else.

“Donald Trump and Republicans justified their massive giveaway to wealthy multinational corporations by claiming that it would boost investment and the benefits would trickle down to workers,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.

“Two years later, none of their promises have been fulfilled. Investment is flat and workers have not seen the wage increases they were promised,” he added.

[...]

Slashing the corporate tax rate and restructuring the tax code, supporters said, would incentivize businesses to invest their money back into the U.S. economy, buying up equipment, buildings and software to accommodate more workers and make them more productive.

It worked for Reagan. It worked for Bush. There's no reason to think there won't soon come along another Republican administration that says the same exact shit to credulous people who then find - guess what? - it didn't work again!

Democrats have hammered the GOP over the massive spike in stock buybacks that was funded by companies using their tax windfall.

It's the never-ending story. It even happened under Obama. Remember the bank bailout that was supposed to get money into the economy, but the flow somehow didn't make it past the banks?

Stock buybacks, which are not considered a business investment, tend to raise the price of remaining shares for other stockholders rather than spur economic activity.

Ding dong. That's why they do it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Good Luck Out There, People

Before Obama’s election, Congress specifically authorized the executive branch, through the $700 billion bank bailout known as TARP, to “prevent avoidable foreclosures.” And Congress pointedly left the details up to the next president.

[...]

Obama and his administration must live with the consequences of that original sin, which contrasts with so many of the goals they claim to hold dear. “It’s a terrible irony,” said Damon Silvers, policy director and special counsel for the AFL-CIO, who served as deputy chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP. “This man who represents so much to people of color has presided over more wealth destruction of people of color than anyone in American history.”

[...]

By the time of Lehman Brothers’ failure in September 2008, defaults on subprime loans had spiked significantly. A critical mass of Democrats in Congress refused to agree to TARP unless some portion got devoted to keeping people in their homes. (The Obama Treasury Department would eventually devote $50 billion of TARP funds to this purpose, of which only $12.8 billion has been spent, more than five years later).

[...]

The administration’s eventual program, HAMP, grew out of the banking industry’s preferred alternative [...] where the industry, rather than bankruptcy judges, would control loan restructuring. Unfortunately, the program has been a success for bankers and a failure for most hard-pressed homeowners.

[...]

Both Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Special Inspector General for TARP Neil Barofsky revealed that then-Secretary Geithner told them HAMP’s purpose was to “foam the runway” for the banks. In other words, it allowed banks to spread out eventual foreclosures and absorb them more slowly. Homeowners are the foam being steamrolled by a jumbo jet in that analogy, squeezed for as many payments as they can manage before losing their homes.

[...]

The Obama administration’s most recent attempt at a solution is to loosen lending restrictions to jump-start the housing market. That trades financial instability for a short-term housing stimulus, and could put homeowners in significant peril. “Everyone’s on board with allowing debt to build up during a boom,” Sufi says, “but we now know afterwards, policymakers will leave people out to dry. You’re going to suffer losses and not get any forgiveness.”

  Bill Moyers

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Another Bankster at the White House

When President Obama last January announced the departure of Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff, many liberals were furious that his replacement was the Midwest Chairman of JP Morgan and Boeing Director William Daley, who was also an opponent of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a critic of Obama’s health care bill as too leftist.

[...]

Yesterday, the White House announced Daley’s departure — he will now co-Chair Obama’s re-election campaign, which basically means raising huge amounts of money from his Wall Street friends.

  Glenn Greenwald

You can’t say President #Compromise isn’t forward thinking when he chooses his appointments.

So let’s have a look at the new Chief of Staff, Jacob Lew (previously serving as a top aide to Hillary Clinton).

President Barack Obama's choice to lead the White House budget office oversaw a Citigroup unit that profited off the housing collapse and financial crisis by investing in a hedge fund king who correctly predicted the eventual subprime meltdown and now finds himself involved in the center of the U.S. government's fraud case against Goldman Sachs.

[...]

[His unit made] investments in a hedge fund that bet on the housing market to collapse -- a reality suffered by millions of American homeowners.

[...]

That sounds pretty nasty, doesn't it?" said Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, a group that monitors the budget office. "Any activity and any player that contributed to the economic calamity needs to be looked at.

"We already got enough players in this administration that certainly were key players in the economic malaise that we currently have," Bass continued. "Why shouldn't we have another one?" he said with a slight chuckle.

But Bass added that he thought Lew was an otherwise excellent choice for the position, noting that as budget director Lew has a proven track record (he held the position during part of the Clinton administration).

  Huffington Post

Sure. Crooks can be good at their regular jobs, can’t they?

"Obviously, Jack has been through a vetting process before," [WH Press Sec Robert] Gibbs told a reporter who had asked whether Obama ever questioned Lew about his work at Citigroup. Gibbs eventually said he didn't know.

Asked if Lew's time at Citigroup was "relevant" and whether it would be "relevant" during his next confirmation hearing, Gibbs said that "those questions have been dealt with."

Indeed.

And, as a result of Lew’s unit’s losses, Citi got that huge bailout ($45 billion) from the taxpayers, Lew himself receiving a $1 billion salary and a $900,000 post-bailout bonus.

And why would Obama question Lew about his work at Citigroup? He already knows. They just shuffle these guys around amongst themselves up there in the Big House.

In case you’ve forgotten, Mother Jones listed the banksters and financial fraudsters who were brought directly from their roles in the financial collapse into the Obama administration. You can read it here.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

New Daily Show Segment

Discussing the economic fiasco and TARP...

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.