‘The System Is Set Up for Big Corporations to Win’
‘The System Is Set Up for Big Corporations to Win’
Inside corporate America’s campaign for more tax cuts.
This morning, The Guardian published my latest story: “U.S. corporations push to roll back Trump-era tax policies they once endorsed.”
The story reveals how the Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other business interests are racing to secure hundreds of billions of dollars in new tax cuts by undoing provisions of the 2017 Trump tax law—which they supported enthusiastically—that were designed to keep the cost of the law under $1.5 trillion.
As congressional negotiators attempt to keep the government funded past January 19, an agreement is emerging that ties the corporate tax breaks to an increase in support for vulnerable American families—an effort to make the deal more palatable for Democrats.
Just six years ago the Business Roundtable, a lobbying group for CEOs of large U.S. firms, described the Trump-era Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as “a remarkable, once-in-a-generation opportunity.” Now, the group is leading “a six-figure advocacy campaign” to roll back parts of it, according to Politico, and threatening that failing to secure new tax cuts will lead to “slower job creation, smaller wage increases and lower overall economic growth.”
An ad from the National Association of Manufacturers, another trade group, claims U.S. companies are “investing billions into the economy” but warns that unless Congress cuts corporate taxes further, “we risk losing it all.” The organization, which in 2017 called the law “a grand slam,” predicts a million job losses over the next two years without additional tax breaks.
The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates these tax cuts would add $650 billion to the federal deficit over the next decade.
“It’s the classic, ‘We want to have our cake and eat it too,’” said Sarah Christopherson of Americans for Tax Fairness, an advocacy coalition. Corporations are saying, “We want to keep every last one of those corporate tax cuts that we got [in 2017]. And also, we want you to double down and give us $600 billion more,” she said.
As Dorothy A. Brown, a Georgetown Law professor and the author of The Whiteness of Wealth, told me, “The system is set up for big corporations to win.”
You can read the full story here: “US corporations push to roll back Trump-era tax policies they once endorsed.”
Thanks to Dominic Rushe and the team at The Guardian, and to all of the people who spoke with me for this story.