Way back in 2010, conservatives made huge gains in the House and Senate thanks to a tidal wave of anti-Obama sentiment. The grassroots Tea Party was a prominent force at the time, and it helped put anti-Establishment Republicans in Congress.
There was finally hope that real conservatives would have a voice, but 7 years later and most of the folks that rode the tidal wave into Congress have become no different than RINOs they were sent there to oppose. A perfect example of this is Senator Marco Rubio, who was once considered a top-notch presidential candidate and an ally conservatives could count on. Rubio’s been keeping his head down these days, but in the aftermath of the GOP’s tax victory, he’s publicly pearl-clutching, saying that maybe they went too far in cutting taxes.
As reported at the Hill, in an interview published Friday, Rubio said that Republicans “probably went too far” cutting corporate taxes. This, despite the fact that the US has long had the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, far higher than eve the tax-loving Europeans.
Rubio poured cold water on the idea that slashing the rates would have a dramatic impact on the economy. Instead, he insisted that corporations might pay out higher dividends to shareholders and buy back their own stocks to artificially increase the own prices–rather than reinvest in the economy as folks hope
“You’re going to see a lot of these multinationals buy back shares to drive up the price,” Rubio told the southwest Florida-based News-Press. “Some of them will be forced, because they’re sitting on historic levels of cash, to pay out dividends to shareholders,” Rubio said. “That isn’t going to create dramatic economic growth.”
The long overdue tax bill cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, which Republicans and free market proponents have claimed will lead to wage gains for workers in the long term.
At least to keep up appearances, many corporations that supported the tax bill announced raises, bonuses, and benefits increases for employees shortly after Congress passed the law on Dec. 22. These include Boeing, Wells Fargo, Comcast, AT&T, and others.
Rubio said while the bill the contained several things he supported, “If I were king for a day, this tax bill would have looked different.” While Rubio spent much of the interview highlighting what he believes are the law’s shortcomings, he did say he believes that Americans will come to support the law, once they start seeing the changes in their pay stubs.
“If I’m against the tax bill because I don’t think it’ll actually cut my taxes and I get my first paycheck in February and it has $200 in there that didn’t used to be there, I’m going to notice that,” Rubio said.
“By the time we get to November of next year, their opinion about the tax bill is not going to be based on media coverage. It’s going to be based on what their paycheck is telling them.”
Rubio’s not wrong to be pessimistic about corporations actually using their tax savings to bolster the economy, but even so, the corporate tax rate has been absurdly high for far too long. With the new rate, the US will be far more competitive with other developed nations. And if corporations try and hoard all the savings for their CEOs and executives, then maybe someone like Rubio could propose a regulation or law that kindly dissuades such opulent behavior.
Source: Hill