The following is part of post by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich:
The Business Roundtable is an association of more than 200 CEOs of America’s biggest corporations, their most powerful voice in Washington.
Last Wednesday, its chair, Joshua Bolten, told reporters that his group planned to drop “eight figures” while “putting its full weight behind protecting and strengthening tax reform.”
Translated: It’s going to pour money into Trump’s campaign to ensure that Trump’s 2017 tax cuts — most of which benefit big corporations and the rich — don’t expire in 2025, as scheduled.
On Thursday, Trump met at the Business Roundtable’s Washington headquarters with over 80 CEOs, including Apple’s Tim Cook, JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, and Walmart’s Doug McMillon.
Trump reportedly promised the CEOs he’d cut corporate taxes even further and curtail business regulations if elected president.
Trump’s 2017 tax cuts reduced the rate of corporate income taxes from 35 percent to 21 percent. That has cost the nation $1.3 trillion. Those tax cuts, along with the tax cuts put in place by George W. Bush, are the primary reason the national debt is rising as a percentage of the economy.
What have corporations done with the money they’ve saved? They haven’t invested it or used it to raise wages. Nothing has trickled down to average workers.
A large portion has gone into stock buybacks. The year after the tax cut went into effect, corporations bought back a record $1 trillion of their shares of stock. Buybacks raise stock prices — and, not incidentally, CEO compensation, which is largely in shares of stock.
Making Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent — as the Business Roundtable seeks — will cost $4 trillion over the next 10 years, $400 billion per year — and cause the debt to soar.
Yet the CEOs that Trump met with last week have been thriving under Biden.
Corporate profits are way up. Stocks are at near-record levels. Inflation has plummeted. Industries like energy that appeared to be at risk from Biden’s policies are doing well.
So why are these CEOs attracted to Trump, whose antics are likely to destabilize the economy? . . .
They’re coming around to Trump because they want even more tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks — which means even more money in their own pockets. . . .
The greedy cynicism of America’s corporate elite is now on full display.
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