>In May, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) found no sign that the Trump tax cuts made any discernible contribution to growth, wages, or business investment. Corporations did not plow their windfalls into exceptionally productive and innovative ventures. Instead, they mostly threw their handouts onto the giant pile of cash they were already sitting on, and/or returned it to their (predominantly rich) shareholders.
>Now, it appears that the CRS analysis may have actually been a bit too kind to Trump’s signature legislation. The federal government’s latest report on economic growth suggests that business investment has been even weaker than previously thought. Initially, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) estimated that America’s gross domestic product expanded by 3 percent in 2018 (on a fourth-quarter-over-fourth-quarter basis). This week, the BEA revised that figure down to 2.5 percent — due, in part, to decelerating growth in business investment.
>Meanwhile, in its initial estimate for the second quarter of this year, the BEA found that GDP grew by 2.1 percent, while business investment declined. Corporations haven’t been growing the economy by ramping up investments in its productive capacity (a.k.a. growing the economy’s “supply side”).
>Consumers and the federal government have been doing so by spending more money on goods and services (a.k.a. increasing aggregate demand)
>Bottom line on Q2 GDP: Business investment was terrible. It came in at -0.6%, the worst since early 2016.
Interesting way of shifting the burden of proof and reversing the null hypothesis but I will bite.
How about the non-partisan federal Congressional Research Service report?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/05/31/trump-tax...
Also from: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/gdp-report-trump-tax-...
>In May, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) found no sign that the Trump tax cuts made any discernible contribution to growth, wages, or business investment. Corporations did not plow their windfalls into exceptionally productive and innovative ventures. Instead, they mostly threw their handouts onto the giant pile of cash they were already sitting on, and/or returned it to their (predominantly rich) shareholders.
>Now, it appears that the CRS analysis may have actually been a bit too kind to Trump’s signature legislation. The federal government’s latest report on economic growth suggests that business investment has been even weaker than previously thought. Initially, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) estimated that America’s gross domestic product expanded by 3 percent in 2018 (on a fourth-quarter-over-fourth-quarter basis). This week, the BEA revised that figure down to 2.5 percent — due, in part, to decelerating growth in business investment.
>Meanwhile, in its initial estimate for the second quarter of this year, the BEA found that GDP grew by 2.1 percent, while business investment declined. Corporations haven’t been growing the economy by ramping up investments in its productive capacity (a.k.a. growing the economy’s “supply side”).
>Consumers and the federal government have been doing so by spending more money on goods and services (a.k.a. increasing aggregate demand)
>Bottom line on Q2 GDP: Business investment was terrible. It came in at -0.6%, the worst since early 2016.