Trump’s Economic Cruelty

By GENE NICHOL

Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman’s new book, “The Triumph of Injustice,” reveals an astonishing, if somehow unsurprising, set of facts. In 2018, with the implementation of the Trump tax cut, for the first time in American history, the richest 400 families paid a lower total effective tax rate (combined federal, state and local) than the bottom 50% of all households. The great 400, last year, coughed up 23% of their earnings, while the poorest half paid 24.2%.

Of course, the top 400 families had more wealth than the bottom 60% of US households combined. So there’s an argument they could perhaps have afforded to pay as much, on a percentage basis, as secretaries and street sweepers do. But President Trump made sure that outrage didn’t happen.

This intense dedication to the interests and well-being of the very, very richest is on something of a roll. In 1960, the top 400 households paid an effective total tax rate of 56%. By 1980, it had dropped to 47%, still more than double what it is today. During the same six-decade period, the figure for the bottom half remained essentially unchanged — presenting a stout version of reverse Robin Hood. As a result, Saez and Zucman show, over the last 75 years the US tax code has become radically less progressive.

And now, as French economist Thomas Pikkety puts it, the US enjoys a higher level of economic inequality “than any other society, at any time in the past, anywhere in the world.” Small wonder Trump, Mnuchin and the Goldman Sachs boys felt compelled to ride to the rescue of the barons. Here’s to draining the swamp. Still, I doubt that a single member of the 400 had the good grace and heart-felt gratitude to actually attend a Trump rally. Perhaps they hire stand-ins. Minimum wage, of course. No benefits.

Trump’s claim that his rich-folks giveaway would reduce the federal deficit turned out to be a lie. (Now there’s a surprise.) Still, largesse for the country’s richest has to be paid for somehow. So, in recent months, the Trump administration has announced that a three stage series of cuts will come to the food stamp (SNAP) program. That’ll at least help a little. Thank God and Franklin Graham that someone is keeping an eye on the budgetary bottom line.

USA Today reports the rule changes will cut SNAP by $4.2 billion over five years – enacting stricter work requirements, capping utility allowance deductions and “reforming” the way states enroll families when they receive other forms of aid. (North Carolina had already moved on one of these fronts – unwilling to allow anyone to gain ascendancy in its war on poor people.)

The Urban Institute reported 3.7 million fewer people per month will receive benefits and 2.2 million households will have their benefits decreased. The Institute’s Laura Wheaton concluded: “It’s a 9.4% reduction in the number of people participating and an 8% reduction in overall benefits.” Trump is hot to cut food stamps even though the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports Americans are far more likely to experience hunger than other wealthy nations.

Franklin Roosevelt declared in his Second Inaugural “the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” How quaint. As on so many fronts, Trump and his buddies have literally turned Roosevelt’s defining ideal on its head. He drags us into the slime with him.

Gene Nichol is Boyd Tinsley Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law and in 2015 started the North Carolina Poverty Research Fund after the UNC Board of Governors closed the state-funded Poverty Center for publishing articles critical of the governor and General Assembly.

From The Progressive Populist, February 1, 2020

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