Trump’s next task is to sell it
Soon after US President Donald Trump finished a “bill passage event” at the White House on Wednesday, some of America’s leading corporations began announcing bonuses and major multi-billion dollar investment over the coming year — a sequence that looked unabashedly scripted.
In fact, the first of the gun-salutes was announced by Trump himself: “Two minutes ago, they handed it to me. AT&T plans to increase U.S. capital spending $1 billion and provide $1,000 special bonus to more than 200,000 U.S. employees, and that’s because of what we did. So that’s pretty good,” he tweeted.
The legislation, which cuts corporate rate from 35% to 21%, lowers top individual rate from 39.6% to 36% and has been seen to be favouring the wealthy and corporations, despite a $2,000 tax break it is expected to give an average American family of four.
It remains unpopular in polls, with respondents considering it pro-rich and pro-big firms. The slew of sops announced by corporations seemed aimed at fixing that perception. And Republican leaders have sought to counter the narrative by saying that their next task is it to sell it.
“When (the bill) gets in place, when people see their paychecks getting bigger in February because withholding tables have adjusted to reflect their tax cuts, when businesses are keeping more of what they earn, when they can write off their spending and hire more people, that’s going to change its popularity, I am convinced,” House Speaker Paul Ryan told CBS TV. HTC