AT&T is giving $1,000 bonuses to 200,000 employees after tax bill

That gave me a chuckle.

 

I've been a mfg manager or exec for about 15 years with 10 of that being in finance. I've never went to a meeting and discussed a downward volume adjustment countermeasure as being increased debt. 100% of the time, expense budgets are reduced.

Also, you don't pay for a revenue reduction. It's not a cost.

 

I don't have to prove it. About 25 Nobel Laureate economists have already done that starting about 80 years ago. Also, you don't have a debt increase due to lack of revenue. Your debt increases when your expenses are greater than your revenue. We have an expense problem.

 

Feel free to post any actual evidence

And debt can be either a revenue or a spending problem or a combination of both.

 

Well raising the national debt by 1.4 trillion is certainly how the Republicans have paid for this tound of tax cuts.

And what in the heck are " downward adjustment counter measures", is that the same type of English as " I've never went"

 

Your obviously not in business management.

 

When volume reduces, you adjust the revenue forecast downward, yet you must have countermeasures to maintain budgeted profit percentage.

Reducing the amount of tax revenue doesn't have to be paid for. It's not a cost.

 

If you had a sudden 10% salary cut, would you adjust your future spending?

 

yes. then, i would attempt to become more productive in order to become more valuable.

 

Good. So now please explain what cuts the US government are going to carry out on already budgeted expenditure.

 

I'm not sure. I have some ideas, but I would delegate that to department heads or simply eliminate some departments. Automotive volumes are dropping to 2012 levels, and I had to put together a proposal for the BP cutting 20% of my department costs. I suggest we have the same activity in government. It's not easy, but necessary.

 

So you do understand that the tax cuts will result in government expenditure reducing or the national debt increasing which is my point and was the point that Courtjester was making?

 

My point is the syntax being used is misleading. The government doesn't get to demand more and more revenue to cover expenses. Instead, we decide the level of tax that is appropriate and expenses need to match. You do not pay for a tax cut.

 

Yes and the result is that road won't be repaired and the promised infrastructure improvements will then be pushed to the back of the queue

 

Why do you think the federal government should repair local infrastructure?

 

Is all infrastructure local?

Edit : and here's a thread started by a Trump supporter:
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...llion-infrastructure-proposal-in-2018.522154/
Trump administration set to unveil $1 trillion infrastructure proposal in 2018

 

If you read in that thread, I oppose all federal spending on infrastructure.

 

But isn't a big reason for this tax reform so that big corps can pay less tax to the govt and then use the money to hire more people? At least that's what I have been hearing although I don't really believe it. This isn't the 1980s and this isn't Reagan's tax reform. What worked then is not even relevant now. Big companies will put money into other ways to get rid of payroll and cut costs but make even more money while they pay less tax. Down South this is called having a birdnest on the ground.

 

I think the sales pitch matches the popular societal theme. The benefit will be productivity. Jobs are reducing with automation. There's no getting around that.

 

Do you oppose federal spending even on things like federal highways? Why would you oppose federal spending on the federal interstate highway system and its roads and bridges? I'm not trying to argue with you but would like to know your thinking.

 

interstates are maintained by the states they run through. I think that more appropriately applied usage taxes should pay for infrastructure.

 

Agreed. Any particular type of infrastructure should be paid for by those who use that type of infrastructure. Paying for what you use, and not making others pay for what you use, seems reasonable.

 

They are, but the lions share of that funding comes from he federal government. That’s how Reagan got the 55mph speed limits.

 

We certainly don't need an influx of unskilled foreign workers.

The South Will Rise Again Under GOP Tax Plan: Florida and Texas will become the new centers of finance and innovation.

Many analysts say the U.S. is a low-tax country, mostly on the idea that taxes paid as a percentage of gross domestic product are lower than most other developed economies. But whether the U.S. is a low- or high-tax country is a matter of perspective, and depends a lot on your income, as the tax code is steeply progressive. With a top federal rate of 39.6 percent, plus a state income tax of 9 percent to 13 percent, plus property taxes — which are no longer fully deductible — the tax burden for high earners approaches Scandinavia, where tax rates are in the high 50 percent range.

People used to complain about high taxes before, but for the most part, they tolerated them. I suspect that now they are going to do something about it because capping the deductibility of state and local taxes (SALT, as it is known) has the potential to result in a population migration so large that it would result in profound economic and social changes. For starters, the South could become home to some of the nation’s largest cities. Many businesses will flee high-tax states in favor of low-tax states. This has been happening for years, but SALT will accelerate the trend.

The only downside is that that migration might turn some red states blue. Some GOP donors need to set up a Welcome Wagon service for those fleeing blue states, to educate them on why they shouldn’t just agitate for the policies that ruined the states they left. With today’s data-mining, such people wouldn’t be hard to identify and reach.