Tax Reform Has Delivered for Workers: Two years later the data show that investment has increased, with wages and job participation rising.
Wall Street Journal ^ | December 22, 2019 | Gary D. Cohn and Kevin Hassett
Posted on 12/23/2019, 7:30:54 AM by karpov
It’s been two years since President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law. To the delight of supply-siders, the law contained significant marginal tax rate reductions for individuals and corporations. At the time there was lively debate concerning the likely economic impact of the bill, with opponents pointing to analyses that found little effect from the rate reductions. At the White House, where we worked at the time, we produced analyses that suggested economic growth would surge. On the second anniversary of the TCJA, the numbers are in, and our projections have been vindicated.
The view that the tax cuts would jump-start the economy was based on abundant economic literature examining how tax policy affects decision-making by businesses and individuals. On the corporate side, the tax cut reduced the cost of installing new plant and machinery by about 10%, suggesting that capital spending would jump by the same amount. This would increase the amount of capital per worker and drive up productivity and wages. President Trump emphasized the last point repeatedly, arguing that family incomes would increase by about $4,000 in three to five years, with blue-collar workers benefiting disproportionately.
This predicted increase in capital has materialized, and has translated into additional economic growth. In 2017 our calculations suggested gross domestic product growth would accelerate in response to higher capital spending, with the contribution of nonresidential fixed investment to real GDP growth rising to between 0.8% and 1% in 2018. The contribution of this type of investment to economic growth from the first quarter of 2018 to the fourth quarter of 2018 was right on target, at 0.8%. This wasn’t the existing trend. Capital spending was 4.5% higher in 2018 than pre-TCJA blue-chip forecasts, and this trend continued in 2019.
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