Opinion
The Plot Against America’s 99%
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Given that the rich tend to save more than middle- and working-class people, who must spend a larger proportion of their incomes on basic necessities, the Trump tax plan will do little for economic growth; it may even decrease it.
By Nouriel Roubini
After multiple failed attempts to “repeal and replace” the 2010 Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), US President Donald Trump’s administration now hopes to achieve its first legislative victory with a massive tax giveaway that it has wrapped in the language of “tax reform.” To that end, Republicans in the US Congress have just unveiled a bill that, if enacted, could vastly widen the deficit and increase the public debt by as much as $4 trillion over the next decade.
Worse still, the Republican plan is designed to funnel most of the benefits to the rich. It would lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%, reduce the tax on capital gains (investment profits), eliminate the estate tax, and introduce other changes that benefit the wealthy.
Like the Republicans’ health-care proposals, their tax plan offers little to struggling middle- and working-class households. Trump continues to govern as a pluto-populist – a plutocrat pretending to be a populist – who has not hesitated to betray the people he conned into voting for him.
Read the full article as published in Project Syndicate.
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Nouriel Roubini is a Professor of Economics and International Business and the Robert Stansky Research Faculty Fellow.
Worse still, the Republican plan is designed to funnel most of the benefits to the rich. It would lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%, reduce the tax on capital gains (investment profits), eliminate the estate tax, and introduce other changes that benefit the wealthy.
Like the Republicans’ health-care proposals, their tax plan offers little to struggling middle- and working-class households. Trump continues to govern as a pluto-populist – a plutocrat pretending to be a populist – who has not hesitated to betray the people he conned into voting for him.
Read the full article as published in Project Syndicate.
___
Nouriel Roubini is a Professor of Economics and International Business and the Robert Stansky Research Faculty Fellow.