Tipsheet

The Democratic Response To Companies Doling Out Bonuses To Workers Remains Abjectly Pathetic

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  January 12, 2018 4:40 PM

Democrats are choking on crow for opposing this tax bill. Are they this economically illiterate? You pass the most extensive tax reform in nearly 30 years, it creates a better job creating and investing environment, and companies begin to boost U.S. investment, dole out bonuses to workers, some increase wages, and make declarations that charitable donations will go up. Yeah, that sounds bad, or something. It all centers on the notion that the Left thinks that your money is their money, and that the government, preferably run by over-educated, snobby liberal elitists, know best to allocate how that money is spent. Namely on programs that foster dependence so when reforms are due, as with any socialist program, the Left can attack the opposing side as being anti-poor, anti-middle class, anti-children, and make apocalyptic calls of people dying in the streets. It’s whatever creates the most hysteria, peddled by their allies in the news media.

With this bill, it’s blown up in their faces. Eighty percent of Americans will be getting a tax cut. Over 90 percent of the American middle class will be getting relief. Over 100 companies are handing out bonuses, with over a million workers receiving that extra cash. For the first time in 11 years, CNBC’s economic survey showed that a majority was optimistic heading into 2018, with more crediting Donald Trump for the booming economy. So, how do Democrats react to this news? Well, they say that it won’t last; not the best spin, folks (via HuffPo):

“Listen, I think it’s great when companies want to give workers bonuses,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said Tuesday. “That doesn’t change the reality of the numbers. It’s a debt-inducing, make-rich-people-richer tax bill that in the long run is not going to be helpful to the vast majority of people in my state that are sitting around the kitchen table trying to figure out how [to] come out even at the end of the month.”

Dozens of companies ? including Wells Fargo, Comcast, AT&T, American Airlines, BB&T, U.S. Bancorp and Nationwide Mutual Insurance ? announced bonuses up to $2,000 for thousands of employees in response to the new law. Others, like Aflac and Visa, announced they would be hiking their 401k match program due to the law. A spokesman for Visa said the company is also exploring other “long-term, sustainable investments versus one-time actions.”

[…]

“I think what they’re doing now is great,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said. “But we’re going to have to live with this baby for a long time, so we’ll see next year and the year after that.”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called it a “good thing” that some corporations are rewarding workers with bonuses because of the tax law. He argued, however, that the positive aspects of the law are “greatly outweighed by the bad things” in it.

[…]

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), while applauding companies that are giving out bonuses, added that such payments “are often a one-shot deal.”

“I think the issue is, look at the ratio of the money they’re spending now on their employees versus the amount for stock buybacks,” Brown said.

They’re all following Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) lead; he admitted to CNN’s Jake Tapper on Christmas Eve that it’s a good thing the middle class is receiving a tax cut, but that this won’t last. So, they’re admitting that this bill is good, and that the only problem is that the middle class tax cuts aren’t permanent? Talk about moving the goal posts, but why is that. Well, Allen Ginzburg aptly noted that Democrats simply held this provision hostage in order to sink the bill. It failed, as the GOP remained united in passing tax reform. Now, they’re stuck with an eight-year period in which middle class taxes will go down, and they’ll have to explain why they voted against that, the American worker, and economic growth. If Democrats resort to attacking savings which they think is meager (hardly the case to working class families), then there’s your cosmopolitan bias. And another angle to attack the Left as out of touch, snobby academics that hate rural America. The Democrats are explaining. When you’re explaining your losing. More companies are going to dole out bonuses to workers, and this bill will become more popular. With the right messaging, Republicans can tie up the Left in a neat bow. These people voted against giving middle class tax relief in order to screw the president—and they say Trump and his crew are Machiavellian. 

So far, the Left’s response to one of the most extensive tax cuts in decades can only be characterized as weak sauce. With the reduced rates, Apple is set to repatriate $250+ billion in overseas money; it was too insane to do so under Obama and a Democratic (and later split) Congress. Fiat Chrysler, while announcing $2,000 bonuses to its workers, also said that they’ll be investing $1 billion for a plant in Michigan. It will create 2,500 jobs. In Las Vegas, the Fontainebleau resort was given the final green light when it became clear the tax bill would pass. As a result, 11,000 jobs were created. Yeah, not much to spin when workers are getting bonuses and increased wages and jobs are being created. All you can do is offer half-assed praise that companies are doing this, while privately hoping that everything collapses to have the big “I told you so” moment the Left is craving in order to lecture the country on how insufferably self-righteous they really are.