Delegate Riley Moore and Business Tax Cuts
On October 19, 2017 Delegate Riley Moore, who represents the Shepherdstown District in the West Virginia House of Delegates, published an opinion piece in the Charleston Daily Mail. The piece urged Congress to pass the Trump “tax reform” bill for the sake of economic growth, particularly in West Virginia. Putting aside that Del. Moore could not have known the details of the Republican tax bill on October 19 because it had not yet been made public, he extolled the virtues of various tax cuts he expected the plan to contain. In particular, Del. Moore is fond of tax cuts for business. His logic is the following. The desirable end result is more economic activity and good jobs for everyone. So far, so good. The means of achieving that desirable end result is to give over a trillion taxpayer dollars to corporations — with no strings attached — and hope that they spend this money in productive ways. What could possibly go wrong with this plan?
Republicans have creative ideas from time to time, and Del. Moore is no exception. He sponsored a bill during the last legislative session that would have created tax credits to stimulate new businesses in West Virginia. But Republicans never want to pay for their creative ideas with new tax revenue. Instead they want to cut into already existing tax revenue that would be available for other useful government work. Tax credits are one way to do this. Tax credits are tax reductions for specific taxpayers who meet the requirements, yet they are still essentially transfers of our public money in exchange for certain taxpayer behavior. Is encouraging this behavior more desirable than some other use for the tax money? The problem is that when these tax credits are proposed it is impossible to identify precisely what government program will be eliminated in exchange, or will suffer for lack of funding. The proponent of the plan doesn’t have to make the case that the tax credit is better than an environmental program, more student loans, or some other worthy project. So the public cannot intelligently answer the question.
Indiscriminate business tax cuts are far worse. Under the Republican world-view, money is best diverted from public uses to private uses. The end result is that government has less and less ability to do what we need it to do. Make no mistake, every dollar that is cut from the taxes of a business is a dollar that we could otherwise use to fund our schools, our healthcare and our public safety. Indiscriminate business tax cuts don’t even pretend to require desirable behaviors from the business like tax credits do. Business tax cuts are just giveaways of our money plain and simple. Today the Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump tax plan in its present House version would permanently reduce the corporate tax rate to 20%, costing $1.5 trillion dollars in lost tax revenue.
Has anyone else noticed that Republicans only seem to be concerned about the deficit and the debt when it is “entitlement” spending programs that are under consideration? True tax reform would shift tax burdens around to be more equitable and streamline administrative procedures. But it would also find new revenues to make up for revenues lost – revenue neutrality. Trump’s tax plan as initially revealed by the House Republican leadership hardly makes an effort to claim revenue neutrality. Paul Ryan and others say that the enormous tax cuts will stimulate growth over the next decade and from this growth new tax revenues will come. No economist will stand up to support this trickle-down baloney. If the so-called “fiscal hawks” in the Republican Party don’t oppose this thinking, then we should all change the channel the next time they complain about spending programs from the Democrats.
Del. Moore’s opinion piece in The Daily Mail also spoke warmly of middle-class tax cuts and on this it is hard to disagree with him. Putting more money in the pockets of those who need a boost is exactly the kind of alternative use for tax revenues that does make sense. It will also boost the economy because middle-class taxpayers will be much more likely to spend their tax cut than the wealthy, who will save any tax cut they get.
But a business is entirely different than a middle-class taxpayer. Sure a business tax cut will free up some money for the business, but what’s to keep that money from being spent on a vacation in the tropics for the owner, or a non-productive use like paying down debt or share repurchases? Writing in the Washington Post, David Lynch notes
Several companies already have indicated that they will use excess funds to pay off debt, increase dividend payments or repurchase their own shares rather than create new jobs or raise wages. On Wall Street, the consensus is that workers will be the last in line behind shareholders, creditors and investment bankers when the extra corporate cash is distributed.
The Republican tax plan contains absolutely no requirement that a business use the tax cut for investments that will create jobs. If Del. Moore wants to have his house painted, you can be sure he doesn’t just send checks to all the painters in town in hopes that one will show up at his house.
If this country is going to give away its tax revenue to corporations for the goals of generating economic activity and creating jobs, there are ways to ensure that the money is employed to these purposes. One need look no further than the way the money from the recent West Virginia road bond referendum will be used. The goals were increased economic activity in the short term and more jobs for West Virginians. There is a linear connection between these goals and the means chosen to achieve them. Projects will begin in the current fiscal year all over the state. The West Virginia Jobs Act requires that contractors receiving these funds employ a workforce of at least 75% West Virginia residents and a proposed amendment introduced at the recent Extraordinary Session of the Legislature would put some teeth into this requirement. Of course, there can always be slips between the cup and lip. But this arrangement creates more confidence that our tax money will be used for the desired purpose than trillion dollar business tax cuts with no strings attached.
