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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBernanke Says Trump Tax Cut A Bad Idea
Marcy Kreiter
Bernanke Says Trump Tax Cut A Bad Idea
May 8, 2017 11:23 am
Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke suggested Sunday an income tax cut to get the economy moving is unnecessary, and the country would be better off with infrastructure spending and tax reform.
I think that it is important, as I mentioned, even though the recovery is proceeding, the underlying growth path is not very strong. Productivity gains have not been very strong, Bernanke told CNN.
President Donald Trump has proposed a massive tax cut that would lower the corporate rate to 15 percent from 35 percent, reduce the number of individual tax brackets, and eliminate the alternative minimum tax as well as the inheritance tax, subscribing to the discredited theory that tax cuts for the rich trickle down through the economy.
What we want to do is try to improve the supply side of the economy, make it grow faster, have greater potential, said Bernanke, who chaired the Fed during the Great Recession and slashed interest rates to zero in 2008 to help restore the economy.
And I think that probably that to do that, I would think that on the fiscal side, that infrastructure spending that improves our roads, our bridges, our schools, and tax reform, not necessarily tax cuts, but reform that makes the system simpler, more efficient, those would probably be the highest-return fiscal actions in terms of getting higher growth, he continued.
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http://www.nationalmemo.com/bernanke-says-trump-tax-cut-bad-idea/
Warpy
(111,277 posts)All that money will flood in and pump up stocks even more than they already are, a great idea if you're trying to fill an empty space inside you with net worth numbers.
It's just an incredibly bad idea for the rest of the economy, sucking up money that should go to public works projects to maintain this country and giving it to a few extremely fat old cats at the top. It denies people at the bottom jobs that pay living wages while forcing deep cuts in social programs that usually soften the blows delivered by fat cat greed.
We're already in the end game of capitalism, people lacking the money to keep them healthy and being forced to eat poor foods just to stay alive, housing deteriorating, and the retail infrastructure disappearing day by day. If you look at anything but the stock market, you realize this country is in the middle of a depression.
What is it going to take for the booboisie to wake up to this? I have no idea.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)favorite Wealth Transfer Tool. Still more of the Chicago School of Economics Bullshit Supply Side Business Model. We have had Thirty plus years of this austerity crap,this will put this into hyper drive mode. Four Hundred Families will be the only winners.
This what this past Election was all about,and if folks missed it,ignorance is bliss.