Dear John,
Trump has built his presidency on the false notion that he is a champion of working people.
In rallies and countless tweets he claims to be restoring the American working class by holding back immigration and trade, and his lackey Steve Bannon even claims Trump has “turned the Republican Party into a working class party”.
Keeping the GOP the Party of Big Money while making it over as the Party of the Working Class is a giant joke, especially at a time when so much wealth and power are being concentrated at the top.
Here are just a few ways Trump’s economic nationalism has betrayed American workers:
- Armed with deductions and loopholes after Trump’s 2017 tax cut, America’s largest companies paid an average federal tax rate of only 11.3 percent on their profits last year, roughly half the official rate under the new tax law — the lowest effective corporate tax rate in more than 80 years. Rather than use their savings to bolster workers’ paychecks, corporations have used most of their tax savings to buy back their shares, giving the stock market a sugar high. The typical American household remains poorer today than it was before the 2008 financial crash.
- Trump’s tax cut for corporations and the super-rich has also caused the federal budget deficit to balloon to unprecedented levels. Even as pretax corporate profits have reached record highs, corporate tax revenues have dropped about a third under projected levels. This puts more federal dollars towards interest on the debt, leaving fewer dollars left over to fund the services workers rely on.
- The tax cut has also shifted more of the total tax burden to workers. Payroll taxes made up 7.8 percent of national income last year, while corporate taxes made up just 0.9 percent, the biggest gap in nearly two decades. All told, taxes on workers were 35 percent of federal tax revenue in 2018 — and taxes on corporations were a measly 9 percent.
- The number of companies paying $0 in federal taxes doubled last year, again thanks to Trump’s tax cut that shafted workers and was a windfall to corporations. If you paid just $1 in taxes in 2018, you paid more than Amazon, Netflix, Chevron, and 57 other billion-dollar companies.
- Aside from his massive handout to the wealthy and corporations, Trump’s asinine trade war with China has caused manufacturing to suffer severely as his tariffs raised prices for imported parts and materials. Hiring has fallen off in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and other states Trump won in 2016, and in states like Minnesota where he narrowly lost.
- The trade wars have also harmed rural America, which also went for Trump in 2016, by reducing demand for American farm produce. Last year China only bought around $8.6 billion of farm goods, down from $20 billion in 2016.
- To make up for his reckless spending, Trump recently announced a $4.5 billion cut in food stamp benefits that would affect 700,000 of our most vulnerable citizens, many at the lower end of the working class. He is also proposing to reduce Social Security disability benefits, a potential blow to hundreds of thousands of workers.
If I continued this list with all the ways Trump has abandoned working people, I’d be writing it well into the New Year.
Trump and the Republican Party are no friend to the working class. The consequences of their excessive corporate giveaways and their failure to improve the lives of ordinary working Americans are becoming clearer by the day.
The only tricks Trump and the Republicans have left are stoking social and racial resentments and claiming to be foes of the establishment.
In 2016, I thought the American people would see through Trump’s tricks and hand him a resounding loss.
I can’t take that risk again.
Will you donate today to put us in a strong financial position to make sure every American knows the full extent of Trump’s betrayal of the working class?
In 2019, Inequality Media produced videos revealing the failures of Trump’s economic policies, how ordinary Americans were hit hardest by his pointless trade war, and how his lofty economic promises have all turned out to be utter lies. But we need to delve even deeper next year.
Can you chip in $3, or whatever you can afford, to help us make more videos showcasing Trump’s war on working people? Your tax-deductible donation will be matched 2:1.
The cracks in the GOP’s facade are beginning to show. And with your help, we will make sure every voter sees Trump and Republicans for what they are: bought-and-paid-for politicians beholden to special interests and big business.
Thank you for your part in exposing the GOP’s betrayal, reclaiming the economy for the vast majority, and making democracy work for all.
Yours in solidarity,
Robert Reich
Inequality Media
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