While mainstream media focuses on Russia and gun control, the economy continues to perform well. We have been tracking sturdy and improving economic fundamentals – not to be confused with the stock market spinning — for months, and now a modern data point has emerged to confirm it thingUS consumer confidence has risen to its highest level since 2001, showing that average Americans feel economic progress in their personal lives. Bloomberg reports:
US Consumer confidence rose to a 17-year high, while optimism about job prospects rose and Americans have started seeing extra money in their paychecks thanks to recent tax cuts, data from the New York-based Conference Board showed Tuesday. The report reflects increased confidence in employment and income, which could support consumer spending. The employment gap, measuring the gap between respondents who say there is plenty of work and those who say it is demanding to find it, widened to 24.7 percentage points, the highest level since 2001. The latest tax legislation signed into law in December may have also boosted sentiment, as many Americans received larger after-tax paychecks in February thanks to the legislation.That may have helped consumers ignore a 10 percent drop in stock prices in early February, which have since recouped most of their losses.
More and more Americans are starting to see their fattened paychecks — a pleasant surprise for most that is directly related to the modern law that cuts taxes for 80 to 90 percent of all taxpayers. That helps explain why public support for GOP tax reform has skyrocketed 26 percentage points since December. Democrats have lied and spread fear about the Republican plan during their demagogic opposition campaign. But the law that has been introduced now has been backed up by reality, and many people are starting to notice. In this in swing districts:
Polls conducted in key congressional districts show that voters increasingly believe the Republican tax reform bill will cut their taxes, not raise them…The poll found that in California’s 21st congressional district, 23 percent of respondents said in January that the bill would lower their taxes, but that number rose to 29 percent in February. Meanwhile, 42 percent said in January that their tax rates would rise because of the tax reform, a number that fell to 30 percent in February. In Colorado’s 6th district, Thirty-one percent of respondents said in January that the tax reform that President Donald Trump signed into law in December would lower their taxes; that number rose to 44 percent in February. The share of voters who said the tax plan would raise their taxes fell from 40 percent to 27 percent during the same period. Other battleground districts — including New York’s 24th District, Pennsylvania’s 8th District and Virginia’s 2nd District — showed similar results.
The truth is slowly but surely eclipsing the false attacks. Meanwhile, workers continue to win on the corporate side of modern reforms, too; the number of U.S. workers receiving bonuses due to tax reform has already exceeded four millionas hundreds of companies of all sizes reinvest in workers, benefits, wages, expansions, and repatriations. It remains crucial that Republican incumbents and their opponents actively sell the tax law to voters, making sure people actually take a moment to compare their latest paychecks to what they received as of January. For almost all Americans (especially middle-income earners), the change will be positive.
Americans are experiencing positive outcomes that Democrats said they would never experience. This gap between expectations and reality should not only be a sign in Republicans’ favor, but it should also damage Democrats’ credibility with voters. The GOP would be wise to see their opponents under pressure to repeal. Bernie Sanders and the ardent left of the “resistance” in the party wants tax law was repealed If Democrats win in November. Every Democratic candidate for federal office should be pressed on whether they support uprooting Americans’ tax cuts and turning back the clock on the economy’s recent progress:
The number of US workers receiving tax reform bonuses now exceeds 4,000,000. Consumer confidence is at a 17-year high. ~90% of all taxpayers receive a tax cut. Will Democrats repeal these material benefits that they demean as “Armageddon crumbs”? https://t.co/y6lfXHkVA3
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) February 27, 2018
Their base wants an answer that moderates and independents won’t like. This issue could drive a wedge between Democrats and different constituencies; Republicans should seize it. They’ve earned the chance to do so, and Democrats have created this problem with their absurd overreach. At the precipice between leftist rhetoric and voters’ actual experiences, I’ll leave you with this thought:
.@guypbenson“Democrats can try to calm this economy, they can pretend tax reform isn’t working, but the results say otherwise.” photo:twitter.com/uNH18RobsP
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) February 26, 2018
UPDATE – Here’s the story from Ohio:
One sec craft breweries will have lower tax bills this year, these savings are not being retained – they are simply being used. Members of the Ohio Craft Brewers Association met Friday with Senator Rob Portman, R-Ohio, to discuss how they are reinvesting in their businesses and people while pushing to make eternal the recent tax changes, which for now are only in effect for the next two years. The Craft Beverage Tax Modernization and Reform Act was part of a broader tax reform package passed by Congress behind schedule last year. It lowered the federal excise tax to $3.50 per barrel from $7 per barrel on the first 60,000 barrels of beer produced per year at U.S. breweries that produce less than 2 million barrels per year. It also lowered the tax to $16 per barrel from $18 per barrel on the first 6 million barrels for all other breweries and importers. That could mean savings of $80 million for its members, according to the Brewers Association, a national trade group.. Each of the nine brewery representatives shared their business development stories with one person. Larry Horwitz, co-owner and brewer at Four String Brewing Co., said his company expects to save about $40,000 this year thanks to the tax change. “We invest where we live and work,” he said. “We are the blue-collar workers in the area.”
The article quotes brewery owners describing wage increases and hiring modern people, and one of the company owners boasts that “this [tax] the bill went straight to our staff.” These job creators are asking Sen. Rob Portman to make these parts of the tax law eternal. Another Buckeye senator, liberal Democrat Sherrod Brown, voted against the law in its entirety, as did every Democrat in Congress. Will Brown, a staunch progressive, sign on to pressure from the left to repeal the law?
