Unexpected Benefits Coming From The Trump Tax Cuts

The Washington Examiner posted an article today about a recent policy change from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The article reports:

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a proposed rulemaking that would require all publicly-owned utility companies that own transmission lines “to revise” their rates to account for the benefits they received under the tax reform package.

The tax reform bill passed last December cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent beginning in 2018. A number of states’ energy commissions have already directed the utilities they regulate at the retail level to account for the changes and grant credits to ratepayers.

…FERC also issued a policy statement on Thursday that provided ratemaking guidance for all companies under FERC’s jurisdiction to account for the tax benefits they received. Those companies include public utilities, owners and operators of natural gas and oil pipelines.

FERC also acted on 46 show-cause investigations, directing certain public utilities whose transmission tariffs used a tax rate of 35 percent to reduce their tax rates to 21 percent, or show why they did not need to do so.

As much as I generally don’t like federal regulations, if that is what it takes to pass the tax savings of publicly-owned utility companies on to their customers, then I support the regulations.

 

Believing What Is Happening Rather Than What You Were Told

Just as an aside, President Trump’s first place fake news award went to the New York TimesPaul Krugman who claimed on the day of President Trump’s historic, landslide victory that the economy would never recover. Considering the past year, that was a wonderful choice for the fake news award.

This year, 2018, is the year that the Tax Reform Bill passed by Congress will begin to take effect. We are already seeing the beginnings of that effect as companies are giving raises, bonuses, and bringing money into America from overseas. Working people are beginning to feel the impact of what Congress did (and what NO DEMOCRAT voted for). Corporations have decided to share their tax break with their workers.

So what happens when people begin to realize that almost everything the media told them about the tax bill was a lie?

Breitbart posted an article today that partially answers that question.

The article reports:

Now that a little thing called economic reality has overtaken months of dishonest media reporting about the Republican tax bill signed into law by President Trump last month, a plurality of 47 percent support the bill, while only 34 percent remain opposed.

This is a huge (and predicable) turnaround when compared to those polls released  in the heart of the media campaign to kill the tax bill. In early December, Gallup showed just 29 percent support for the bill; as did Quinnipiac. Less than a month ago, the left-wing cable news network CNN released a poll that showed support for the bill cratering with opposition climbing from 45 percent to 55 percent. Only one-third of Americans were in favor of the tax cut.

Considering the media’s 24/7 opposition to the bill, these negative polls were not all that surprising. In a cynical and partisan effort to kill the GOP tax cut through the use of lies to gin up opposition, including the wildly false claim that only the rich and corporations would benefit, some outlets even went so far as to claim that taxes on working people and the middle class would increase. And polls showed that too many people actually believed that nonsense.

When did allowing people to keep more of the money they earn become controversial?

How long can the media continue to misreport news and still be listened to?

Grasping At Straws After You Have Lost The Argument

Ordinary Americans are already benefiting from the tax reforms passed by Congress. People who work for the corporations who got the tax breaks are getting raises and bonuses. People who have 401k plans are watching their portfolios grow exponentially. So what’s the downside? If you’re a Democrat, it’s the fear that the economy may continue to grow in a way that positively impacts the average American. That fear is illustrated by a recent statement by Representative Nancy Pelosi.

Townhall.com posted an article today reporting Representative Pelosi’s comments on the impact of the tax reform.

The article reports:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who infamously called the tax law “Armaggedon,” is now acknowledging the bonuses, but insists they are “insignificant” when you look at the bigger picture of how corporations unfairly benefitted from the bill.

“In terms of the bonus that corporate America received versus the crumbs they are giving to workers, to kind of put the schmooze is so pathetic, it’s so pathetic,” Pelosi said at a Capitol Hill press conference Thursday when asked about companies investing more in their workforce.

Pelosi explained where she was coming from by singling out one of the bonuses that is not that impressive because it was “already in a union contract.”

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) were among the other liberal lawmakers who couldn’t fully appreciate the positive consequences of a “make-rich-people-richer tax bill.” 

Representative Pelosi may consider the bonuses (and raises) insignificant in relation to the corporations, but there is another part of the story.  According to a website called celebritynetworth.com, in her 2015 wealth disclosure, Nancy Pelosi and her husband estimated their personal net worth to be between $43 million and $202 million. No wonder she regards the rewards for the American worker as insignificant!

Being Obstreperous Because You Can

The tax bill the President signed today was a major victory for the President and those who supported it. The Democrats are looking a little unhappy about the whole thing. The real reasons the Democrats opposed the bill are most likely political, but there was one thing the Democrats changed in the bill that they need to be held accountable for.

Townhall posted an article about the tax bill today explaining how parents of children with disabilities and parents who homeschool were denied a benefit by Democrats.

The article reports:

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), one of the Senate’s most outspoken advocates for school choice, introduced an addition to the tax bill called the Student Opportunity Amendment. The amendment would expand 529 college savings plans to also include K-12 education, allowing parents and grandparents to use these tax-advantaged plans to save up to $10,000 per child per year for private schools, religious schools, or even homeschooling.

…However, Democrats weren’t about to let a beneficial piece of legislation pass without a fight. Party leaders ran to the Senate Parliamentarian to complain that the entire amendment ran afoul of the Byrd rule — another one of those arcane Senate rules that no one understands. But while the Parliamentarian disagreed with the Democrats’ argument about the majority of the provisions in the amendment, she unfortunately found their argument compelling when applied to homeschooling and struck the language from the bill.

In response, Senator Cruz rushed to the floor and pushed a Motion to Waive the Parliamentarian’s changes, which solely affected the homeschooling provision. This motion would require a 60-vote majority to succeed.

This is what happened next:

Nevertheless, not a single Democrat voted for Senator Cruz’s motion. Not one. The Democrats knowingly and proudly discriminated against homeschooled kids and kids with disabilities, in many cases destroying their access to quality education. Even by the Democrats’ woefully low standards, it was a shameful display.

Next time Democrats attempt to take the moral high ground on some issue related to education or welfare, Americans should remember exactly what they did here. When given the choice to help children with disabilities, they chose partisanship. When given the opportunity to make life better for millions of children, they chose to RESIST.

The actions of the Democrats in the Senate are truly despicable.