Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace went to town on Trump Treasury Sec. Steve Mnuchin for the Trump tax cut not helping workers.
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Video:
https://youtu.be/6zednBO5-oY
Transcript via Fox News Sunday:
WALLACE: When a corporate tax bill was passed, you and the president promised that most of the benefits were going to go to workers, but that’s not, in fact, what has happened so far. I want to put up this chart.
According to one study, S&P companies have given employees $5.2 billion in bonuses and higher wages, the kinds of things you and the president talked about. But at the same time they spent $157 billion on stock buybacks.
So far the tax cuts are going to shareholders. They’re not going to workers.
MNUCHIN: Well, Chris, first of all, we’re only a couple of months into this. So I think you have over 4.5 million Americans that have received special bonuses. That’s an enormous situation.
I was at Boeing last week with the president — or two weeks ago viewing the factory. There were a lot of happy workers there. I was at Apple, who’s committed to put $350 billion back into the United States. These are massive commitments.
And as I’ve commented, there’s nothing wrong with share buybacks. Share buybacks are just an allocation of capital. If a company can’t effectively use that capital, they will return it to shareholders. In many cases that’s pensions and other large investors, who then invest that capital back into companies that need the capital. So —
WALLACE: OK, so are you disappointed that $5 billion is going to workers and $150 billion is going to shareholders?
MNUCHIN: It’s not — it’s not an equivalent comparison.
So, again, that $150 billion that’s going back to shareholders gets recycled into the economy. The 5 billion that’s going to workers is an — is an enormous amount of money that we didn’t even expect to see right away.
What we’ve expected to see is, over the course of the next year, wages increase something like $4,500. And that’s — that’s a lot of money. So I think — I think you’re seeing absolutely the impact that we thought and more so on the tax plan.
With a blue wave coming, Fox News is turning on the tax cut
Fox News has turned into Trump propaganda, especially in primetime, but the bread and butter for Fox has always been helping Republicans get elected and stay elected. Wallace and Fox News Sunday were trying to give some political cover to endangered Republican incumbents around the country who are facing an enraged electorate who aren’t seeing any benefits from the Trump tax cuts.
Republicans sold this tax cut as an immediate boost to the economy, so the White House’s plea for more time sounds especially weak and hollow.
The tax cuts aren’t going to boost wages. Almost all of the short and long-term benefits go to the wealthy and corporations. The idea that the tax cut is going from shareholders back into the economy is a false premise. The money is going from shareholders to their bank or investment accounts. The boon to shareholders is not helping Main Street businesses or boosting worker wages.
The tax cut was based on a lie, and even Fox News isn’t playing ball anymore.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
