Schumer blasts WH paper on corporate tax cuts

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday blasted a White House report predicting a boost to wages from a corporate tax rate cut, arguing that the study uses “fake math.”

“President Trump complains about fake news — this fake math is as bad as any of the so-called fake news he has complained about,” Schumer said in a statement. “This deliberate manipulation of numbers and facts could lead to messing up the good economy the president inherited from President Obama and hurting the middle class.”

{mosads}

The paper from Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) argues that a proposal in the GOP tax framework to cut the corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent would, estimating “very conservatively,” result in an increase in average household income of $4,000 per year. 

CEA Chairman Kevin Hassett argued that a lower corporate rate would encourage businesses to invest more in capital assets, which would increase worker productivity and wages.

But Schumer said that “history shows tax cuts like these benefit the wealthy and the powerful to the exclusion of the middle class.”

“As the president likes to point out, the stock market is at record highs and companies are raking in unprecedented profits, yet wages have remained relatively flat,” he said. “That’s proof positive that companies already have a cash windfall, but they’re not using it to boost wages.”