Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Yeah, but Act 10.....

By Jeff Simpson 

We hear often that Scott Walkers signature bill, ACT10, has "saved Wisconsin taxpayers $5 billion dollars".  according to a study done by Bradley funded, right wing no think tank, MacIver Institute.

We at CogDis pointed out, that ACT10 did not save taxpayers $5 billion dollars but instead took $5 billion dollars of demand, out of our supply and demand economy, leading to tragic consequences.  

Under Scott Walker, and one party WisGop rule, we have more businesses closing than starting.

John Lettieri, EIG cofounder and senior director for policy and strategy, said the number of new companies formed in the state lagged behind those that closed, even as figures like employment and GDP began to rebound.
"Wisconsin has a really low startup rate – in fact it has the 48th lowest startup rate in the country over the course of the recovery," Lettieri said. "That’s a concerning starting point. It gets worse when you look at the closure rate, the death rate of firms."
Ouch....we are also seeing that in retail as malls, and stand alone stores are closing all over WI.  

Why is that?

Is it because people have so much money they cant figure out where to spend it all, or is it because with wage decline, austerity and bills like ACT10 taking money out of the pockets of consumers that people are broke and have no money to buy things?

If you chose option B as in Broke, you would be correct:

Retail stocks have slumped this year.
While many chalk up the declines to competition from online retail behemoth Amazon (AMZN) , famed market expert Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, doesn't agree.
"Amazon has been here for a long time - this is the worst year for retail - it's worse than 2008 and 2009," he said. "This is because consumers are broke - they have lousy jobs, they're loaded up with debt and they can't afford to buy stuff."

For some reason the ACT10 "savings" never actually made it back into the pockets of consumers.

Which is why everytime you drive around our once great state, and see a for sale sign on a super club, or a going out of business sign on a big box retailer, or can no longer get that cool item from the local unique store you like to shop at ....you can thank ACT10 and Scott Walker.  

 Unfortunately, no help is on the horizon either.   The GOP top "policy wonk" and Speaker of the House, Janesville's own Paul Ryan (R- Wall St.)  has made it his mission to "reform the tax code" ( even overlooking treason and out and out racism by the President(but that's another blog)).    

The problem, when this numbers guru(who is scared to show his face in WI), wanted to push his far right agenda, he went to Seattle, WA to speak about his "ideas" at the Boeing plant.  

“For Boeing, we are taxing this business, these planes, your jobs in this country at a much higher tax rate than our foreign competitors tax theirs,” the Republican said. “You know what the tax rate here is? Thirty-five percent! “
 Gesturing at the activity in the plant, he added: “I’m just in awe that in spite of all that, you’re still doing so well.”

Umm Paul....what I am in awe of, is the fact that you do no research and are continually thought of as a legit candidate and not the fraud you continually prove yourself to be.

The actual facts:

Facts are for suckers these days, but c’mon. Not only is Boeing gushing cash, but its own financial documents show it has actually paid an average federal income tax of just 3.2 percent of profits over the past 15 years. That’s less than one-tenth the figure Ryan cited.

It doesn’t even count the largest tax break in U.S. history granted by the state of Washington, which reduced the company’s state business tax burden in 2015 nearly to zero.
 “The question with Boeing isn’t whether high taxes are hurting them, because that’s ludicrous on the face of it,” says Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington, D.C., outfit that tracks the taxes companies pay. “The question with Boeing is: How much lower could their taxes possibly go?” 
“Corporate profits are gangbusters right now. Corporate taxes as a share of the economy are, in the past 10 years, as low as they’ve ever been.”
 While the listed rate is 35 percent, hardly any company pays that due to extensive loopholes, subsidies and deductions that lower the burden. As we know around here, Boeing is especially skilled at feeding at this corporate-subsidy trough.
In a recent study, Gardner found that of 258 profitable Fortune 500 companies, 100 paid no taxes in at least one year out of the past eight (for Boeing, it was four of those years.) Eighteen companies paid nothing over the whole period, despite booking $177 billion in profits.

Simple mistake I guess, Speaker Ryan was only off by a few hundred million dollars.  

The moral of the story is, while James McNerney makes $29 million a year as CEO of Boeing, you and I are getting our take home pay slashed to "help the taxpayers", while our taxes go up to pay for essential services, corporation taxes are freefalling and we end up with less money, crumbling roads and larger class sizes.

We can continue listening to the spin of the Scott Walker and MacIver's of the world, or we can just pay attention when we drive around our local areas to the state of the roads, the crumbling of the buildings and the business that the "For Sale" and "Closing" sign makers are getting!  

We can change our course in 2018.  We MUST change our course in 2018!








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