GOP operatives insisted that the “blue wave” on the horizon would crest long before November — because the Trump Tax Cuts were about to kick in.
Once voters saw fatter paychecks, Republicans would see better poll numbers. And just to be sure that voters noticed all the good Paul Ryan had done for them, the
Trump administration reportedly pressured the IRS to err on the side of withholding too little from Americans’ paychecks "so people will see big increases in their take-home pay ahead of this year’s midterm elections."
This did not work out as planned.
Red:
Yes, I'm sure, one way or another, some folks saw fatter paychecks. I noticed the difference in my estimated tax payments. (Note: my estimated tax payments are structured to result in my, come April 15th, having paid ~90% of my federal tax liability.) I suspect, however, that most folks, regardless of their gross or pre-tax "take home" income, found the difference, as did I, inconsequential to their lifestyle. And therein lies a key problem with Trump's tax cut (the TCJA).
Tax cuts aren't supposed or generally designed to be "life altering;" however, if one's going to advertise them as being "middle class" tax cuts, members of the middle class (
folks in the third through sixth septiles) ought, proportionally, get a better cut than folks in other economic segments of the population. Yet,
that's just not how the TCJA doles the benefit of the cuts. Indeed the nature and extent of the revisions to the corporate sections of the tax code provided "life altering" reductions -- the plethora of stock buybacks being the early indicator of such -- to organizations that have, as the unabated and comparatively steep value increase of every stock index that readily comes to my mind: Dow indices, S&P indices,
CBOE, NASDAQ,
Russel,
Goldman, etc.
Now folks are beginning to see what analyst after analyst indicated before Congress/Trump enacted the TCJA: it's little but a successfully marketed set of "window dressing" and "smoke and mirrors" set of provisions that allow corporations and wealthy folks (from "entry level" wealthy on up) retain more earnings, and it does so at a time when it's increasingly prudent (due to the greater returns to AI/robotics than to labor) for such folks to invest those retained earnings in purchases not of labor, but of capital. Exacerbating the matter is Trump's chaotic approach to articulating policy, particularly trade policy and policies that sagacious managers consider in evaluating decisions such as how to expand, where to deploy resources, whether to buy or outsource "this or that," whether/where to erect/buy new facilities, etc.
Blue:
So, yes, folks see fatter paychecks. The problem is what they don't see and don't bother to look for, behaviors typical of many a middle class citizen, Trumpkins in particular. I'm sure many a sharkbite victim saw lovely seas and beautiful skies but not the jaws lurking below....
Trump's tax cut is much like everything else coming from him: deceptive.