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>The American people largely disapproved of the tax cut The media spoke negatively - almost to smear campaign levels - about the tax cut from the very beginnin

by coolso 8y ago

>The American people largely disapproved of the tax cut The media spoke negatively - almost to smear campaign levels - about the tax cut from the very beginning. Is it any wonder? >and that has held steady in the year since its passage [1] According to your source, support has increased. It’s still not popular among a majority, but post media smear campaign (mostly) support has gone up from 29% to 39%, and disapproval down from 56% to 46%. That’s pretty big.

el_benhameen 8y ago
Can you clarify what you mean by “smear campaign”? The negative stories I read mostly focused on how the tax cut would increase the defecit and debt (which it did [1]), how companies were likely to use it for stock buybacks versus investment or hiring (which they did [2]), and how the tax cut would disproportionately benefit higher earners (which it did [3]). [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/16/trumps-tax-cut-didnt-reduce-the-deficit--despite-his-many-promises.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/16/trumps-tax-cut-didnt-reduce-... [2] https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/10/investing/stock-buybacks-record-tax-cuts/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/10/investing/stock-buybacks-re... [3] https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/effect-tcja-individual-income-tax-provisions-across-income-groups-and-across-states/full https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/effect-tcja-ind...
- coolso 8y ago
  > Can you clarify what you mean by “smear campaign”? Yes, nearly every single media outlet spoke negatively about the tax cut while spending very little time speaking positively about it. Take this example, one of many: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/03/30/the-richest-americans-get-a-33000-tax-break-under-the-gop-tax-law-the-poorest-get-40 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/03/30/the-r... Entitled “The richest Americans get a $33,000 tax break under the GOP tax law. The poorest get $40.” What it fails to mention is the fact that the richest Americans are already paying the brunt of taxes, while the poorest are already barely paying any - as it should be. However, the headline paints a very biased picture. See also the Wiki article on the Tax Act, which speaks to the media “assailing” the Tax Act, and provides examples. See this article http://www.crfb.org/press-releases/house-passes-historic-debt-increase http://www.crfb.org/press-releases/house-passes-historic-deb... Entitled “House Passes Historic Debt Increase”, while it may technically be correct, it’s also misleading and very biased. No mention of the near-$500-$1k a year tax break the average middle class American receives under the Act? Or the increased employment numbers? Regarding complaints of adding to the deficit, note that aside from Fox, most media outlets - that had previously reamed W for his, rightfully so - payed little attention to the fact that Obama increased the deficit almost twice what Obama did. It’s the picking and choosing that bothers me. Border walls and stricter immigration policy was endorsed by Dems until somewhat recently... until Trump endorsed them, now they’re the worst ideas ever. Budget deficits are fine when they’re the result of policies the Dems like... but now they’re horrendous. I agree that the Tax Cut should have included bigger breaks for the lower income brackets, but they absolutely are still getting a break, and unemployment numbers are at record highs.
  - deniroslou 8y ago
    News flash: Democrat supporters don’t care when it comes from their side and will always find a way to justify it. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.
  - cannonedhamster 8y ago
    The tax cut wasn't that great, most Americans didn't get enough to notice it and it didn't spur any job creation, in fact it's pretty much been used to pay out shareholders. Job growth has been slowly since Pres. Trump took office, mainly due to the uncertainty he's created in the markets due to trade wars and destabilizing relationships with allies. It's also true that as the markets have become more saturated this is to be expected, however salaries haven't risen despite a favorable business environment suggesting pretty much every company expects a downturn and backlash to reality. I got a pretty good sized tax cut. I'd rather pay more and have guaranteed healthcare that wasn't employer based, but that's a sample size of one. In your case you're touting $9-$18 a paycheck for the middle class as something to be excited over? They're going to lose their healthcare and jobs because of that tax break. Pretty sure that's worth more to them which might be some of the reason that support for the tax cut was lackluster. Obama didn't increase the deficit. Congress did, congress controls the budget, the buck stops with them. Obama had a friendly Congress for precisely two years and they basically did nothing worth remembering other than the Affordable Care Act which will be rolled back and push us back to the pre-existing conditions, even higher cost healthcare the at predated it, because Congress won't allow Medicare to use competitive drug pricing. The reason the debt went up is because we were in a recession, fighting wars, and cut taxes. Of course the debt went up. You always need to spend governmental money to pull a country out of a recession, the government is the only one with enough money to do so. Same thing prior to capitalism. Cities that flourish have strong governmental spending. What we need to do is actually raise taxes and pay for what we've already spent. There's no amount of cutting taxes that will make us reduce the debt. I personally prefer the balanced-budget requirements, i.e. you can't spend money unless you say exactly where it's going to come from beforehand. I also wish that there were more studies spent on efficacy of money spent against the purpose and this was published regularly by the CBO. As for the border wall, it's a terrible idea. No one is against border security, however border walls are a relatively terrible idea in most places due to costs, land rights, water rights, etc. It would be far more effective to spend money on more agents and automated drones to assist border control. Add to that we don't have a wall at the border with Canada so the idea of only protecting the Southern border comes across as silly since most people who are here illegally simply overstay their visas. If someone really wants to get into the US, it's trivially easy through numerous locations.

by coolso 8y ago

el_benhameen 8y ago

Can you clarify what you mean by “smear campaign”? The negative stories I read mostly focused on how the tax cut would increase the defecit and debt (which it did [1]), how companies were likely to use it for stock buybacks versus investment or hiring (which they did [2]), and how the tax cut would disproportionately benefit higher earners (which it did [3]). [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/16/trumps-tax-cut-didnt-reduce-the-deficit--despite-his-many-promises.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/16/trumps-tax-cut-didnt-reduce-... [2] https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/10/investing/stock-buybacks-record-tax-cuts/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/10/investing/stock-buybacks-re... [3] https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/effect-tcja-individual-income-tax-provisions-across-income-groups-and-across-states/full https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/effect-tcja-ind...

coolso 8y ago
> Can you clarify what you mean by “smear campaign”? Yes, nearly every single media outlet spoke negatively about the tax cut while spending very little time speaking positively about it. Take this example, one of many: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/03/30/the-richest-americans-get-a-33000-tax-break-under-the-gop-tax-law-the-poorest-get-40 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/03/30/the-r... Entitled “The richest Americans get a $33,000 tax break under the GOP tax law. The poorest get $40.” What it fails to mention is the fact that the richest Americans are already paying the brunt of taxes, while the poorest are already barely paying any - as it should be. However, the headline paints a very biased picture. See also the Wiki article on the Tax Act, which speaks to the media “assailing” the Tax Act, and provides examples. See this article http://www.crfb.org/press-releases/house-passes-historic-debt-increase http://www.crfb.org/press-releases/house-passes-historic-deb... Entitled “House Passes Historic Debt Increase”, while it may technically be correct, it’s also misleading and very biased. No mention of the near-$500-$1k a year tax break the average middle class American receives under the Act? Or the increased employment numbers? Regarding complaints of adding to the deficit, note that aside from Fox, most media outlets - that had previously reamed W for his, rightfully so - payed little attention to the fact that Obama increased the deficit almost twice what Obama did. It’s the picking and choosing that bothers me. Border walls and stricter immigration policy was endorsed by Dems until somewhat recently... until Trump endorsed them, now they’re the worst ideas ever. Budget deficits are fine when they’re the result of policies the Dems like... but now they’re horrendous. I agree that the Tax Cut should have included bigger breaks for the lower income brackets, but they absolutely are still getting a break, and unemployment numbers are at record highs.
- deniroslou 8y ago
  News flash: Democrat supporters don’t care when it comes from their side and will always find a way to justify it. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.
- cannonedhamster 8y ago
  The tax cut wasn't that great, most Americans didn't get enough to notice it and it didn't spur any job creation, in fact it's pretty much been used to pay out shareholders. Job growth has been slowly since Pres. Trump took office, mainly due to the uncertainty he's created in the markets due to trade wars and destabilizing relationships with allies. It's also true that as the markets have become more saturated this is to be expected, however salaries haven't risen despite a favorable business environment suggesting pretty much every company expects a downturn and backlash to reality. I got a pretty good sized tax cut. I'd rather pay more and have guaranteed healthcare that wasn't employer based, but that's a sample size of one. In your case you're touting $9-$18 a paycheck for the middle class as something to be excited over? They're going to lose their healthcare and jobs because of that tax break. Pretty sure that's worth more to them which might be some of the reason that support for the tax cut was lackluster. Obama didn't increase the deficit. Congress did, congress controls the budget, the buck stops with them. Obama had a friendly Congress for precisely two years and they basically did nothing worth remembering other than the Affordable Care Act which will be rolled back and push us back to the pre-existing conditions, even higher cost healthcare the at predated it, because Congress won't allow Medicare to use competitive drug pricing. The reason the debt went up is because we were in a recession, fighting wars, and cut taxes. Of course the debt went up. You always need to spend governmental money to pull a country out of a recession, the government is the only one with enough money to do so. Same thing prior to capitalism. Cities that flourish have strong governmental spending. What we need to do is actually raise taxes and pay for what we've already spent. There's no amount of cutting taxes that will make us reduce the debt. I personally prefer the balanced-budget requirements, i.e. you can't spend money unless you say exactly where it's going to come from beforehand. I also wish that there were more studies spent on efficacy of money spent against the purpose and this was published regularly by the CBO. As for the border wall, it's a terrible idea. No one is against border security, however border walls are a relatively terrible idea in most places due to costs, land rights, water rights, etc. It would be far more effective to spend money on more agents and automated drones to assist border control. Add to that we don't have a wall at the border with Canada so the idea of only protecting the Southern border comes across as silly since most people who are here illegally simply overstay their visas. If someone really wants to get into the US, it's trivially easy through numerous locations.