Gillum's economic plan is a dumpster fire in the making & so is the coverage of it
Excerpt: The policy is an economic “disaster.” People and companies will “flee” Florida. The Sunshine State will turn into New York or California overnight.
That’s just some of the messaging Republicans and business groups have used to describe Andrew Gillum’s proposed corporate tax increase. The Democratic nominee for governor says he wants to raise the state tax rate from 5.5 percent to 7.75 percent in order to finance a $1 billion investment in education. (Part of that investment would also come from the legalization and taxation of recreational marijuana.) Gillum’s campaign says the increase is a way to make sure large corporations are paying their “fair share” in the wake of the significant tax cut they received from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
So is Gillum’s plan an economic catastrophe in the making or a way to level the playing field? According to tax policy experts, the reality is more nuanced than either explanation. Here are four questions you need answered about Gillum’s corporate tax proposal.
Bottom Line: It generally gets more painful from there. The first of the four answers on the question as to if the tax hike would prevent businesses from moving to Florida starts with...“Academics say it’s possible”. I had PTSD from when I had my “accomplished” economics professor in college argue with me about total labor cost, business taxes, regulations, etc...AS I TOOK TIME AWAY FROM MY BUSINESS TO BE IN THE CLASS! I was living the very thing, with an award-winning business, that the “academic” had only ever read or studied. And she had the audacity to insist I was wrong on numerous occasions as I’d try to correct her. Stereo-types do often exist for a reason.
Anyway, enough about my 20-year-old nightmare revisited. Here’s the deal. Academics generally didn’t know what the hell they were talking about regarding business back then and generally speaking they’re just as incompetent today. 97.6% of economists were wrong about the impact of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act. This while I spelled out what would happen on December 26th when I demonstrated that the average net take home pay would average a 7% increase in 2018 through a combination of tax cuts and projected raises/bonuses. As of the end of August we were pacing 6.7% year over year. But back to Gillum’s dumpster fire of a tax plan.
Why the heck would you turn back to the same set of fools for more information? Wouldn’t it make more sense to speak to business owners considering expanding into our state? I’m not going to make this complicated because it doesn’t need to be.
- Would a 41% tax increase make a business more or less likely to relocate to Florida?
- Would a business earning 41% less be more or less likely to hire more people?
- Would a business earning 41% less be more or less likely to expand in Florida?
- Would a business earning 41% less be more or less likely to issue raises?
- Would a business earning 41% less be more or less likely to issue bonuses?
What’s more is the absurdity of insisting that Florida’s state laws should change to reflect current federal policy. That’s the exactly opposite of the reason we have state governments to begin with...just saying... What’s more is that many aspects of the current federal tax law sunset after eight years – so we’d be even more screwed then. It’s the economic nightmare that would only get worse with time. And btw, the use of the Gillum term “investment” in education. Raising taxes to spend on government projects is literally the antithesis of investment. People and the private sector invest. Government only has what it takes from those who produce. But what else should we expect from dumpster fire policy and coverage?