Economist Paul Krugman Stunned GOP Defending Trump's Corporate Tax Cut Failure
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Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman is surprised Republicans are so strongly defending the Trump administration’s whopping 40% cut in the corporate tax rate since it was what he brands a “dismal failure” at boosting the economy, as promised — even before the pandemic.
President Joe Biden seeks to raise corporate taxes from 21% to 28% to recover a portion of the rate corporations were paying when Donald Trump moved into the White House. (They were paying a 35% rate then.)
Trump claimed the tax cut would boost business investment and increase jobs and wages. Instead, many businesses used the tax windfall to buy back their own stock at record rates rather than expand operations. Wage growth was less than expected, and the cut did not pay for itself as Trump promised. Instead, the massive corporate tax break helped drive the nation into record (pre-pandemic) deficits.
Dozens of some of the biggest corporations in America paid no taxes last year — again.
I've been a bit surprised to see some Republicans opposing Biden's plans by claiming that the Trump tax cut for corporations was a big success. I thought they'd gone into hiding given its dismal failure 1/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) April 5, 2021
I mean, we were promised a huge surge in business investment; here's what actually happened 2/ pic.twitter.com/0MMGaFOddI
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) April 5, 2021
But silly me. The players involved here have a long history of denying plain facts that conflict with their agenda. Remember how Rs responded to the surge in Obamacare enrollments? 3/ https://t.co/Y0X9TdS0dV
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) April 5, 2021
So I'll make a prediction: as the economy booms, we'll see claims both that the boom is fake, that Biden is cooking the books, and that Trump deserves credit 4/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) April 5, 2021
Krugman said he shouldn’t be surprised by Republicans’ revisions of the past, given their “long history of denying plain facts that conflict with their agenda.”
He predicts that next they’ll claim that Biden is “cooking the books” and that Trump “deserves credit” for a strong economy.
If you paid $120 for a pair of Nike Air Force 1 shoes, you paid more to Nike than it paid in federal income taxes over the past 3 years, while it made $4.1 billion in profits and Nike's founder, Phil Knight, became over $23 billion richer. Yes. We must #TaxTheRich.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 2, 2021
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
