The Trump Economy On Labor Day, 2018

It was a VERY different GOP in 1956

Yesterday, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka was on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, a show Señor Trumpanzee watches. Trumka pointed out that Trump has "used his office to actively hurt working people [and] to date, the things that the Trump and his anti-worker regime have "done to hurt workers outpace what he’s done to help workers... He hasn’t come up with an infrastructure program that could put a lot of us back to work. He overturned a regulation that would deny over 5 million overtime that they would’ve had. He overturned some health and safety regulations that will hurt us on the job... We keep trying to find areas where we can work with him." Trumka noted that "wages have been down since the first of the year. Gas prices have been up since the first year. So overall, workers aren’t doing as well." A few hours later, Trump was barking at Trumka on Twitter:

But Trumka-- not Trump-- had all the facts on his side. Trump is just a balloon filled with hot air and bombast. His economy has been fine for multimillionaires and billionaires, but awful for normal Americans. As Dan Martin noted last month for Shareblue, the tax scam has been a total failure in terms of keeping the promises the GOP made when they rammed it through Congress. It's certainly nothing to run for reelection and House Republicans rarely mention it on the stump and have been reduced to running against rock bands, skateboarding and tattoos.

As Martin wrote, "Wages are falling, Wall Street tycoons are swimming in profits from stock buybacks, and the federal deficit is exploding. Every way you slice it, the Republican tax scam is failing spectacularly, falling far short of the blustering promises of Trump, Speaker Paul Ryan, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. When Republicans jammed through the tax scam on a party-line vote, Trump promised it would be 'rocket fuel' for the economy, helping families across the nation. Ryan promised tax cuts for everyone. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin vowed the bill would pay for itself. All lies.

Wages are falling, after adjusting for inflation, since the tax scam became law. “The idea that the tax cuts were going to line workers’ pockets was always a mirage,” says the New York Times.

The uber-wealthy? They are making out like bandits. Rich corporations are plowing tax breaks into record-setting levels of stock buybacks, expected to top $1 trillion this year, according to the Times. Buybacks increase the price of stocks, and many corporate executives who are compensated with those very same stocks are enjoying a Trump Bump in their bottom line.

Trump promised the tax scam would focus on “folks who work in the mailrooms and the machine shops of America-- the plumbers, the carpenters, the cops, the teachers, the truck drivers, the pipe fitters.” But in reality, corporate CEOs and Wall Street investors are coming out on top, while workers are being left behind.

While the wealthy are enjoying even more excesses, the tax scam caused America’s deficit to explode. Mnuchin and Ryan promised the tax scam wouldn’t add to the deficit, but that’s just flat wrong. Both the deficit and national debt are growing “at a stunning pace,” according to the Times. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office shows the tax scam is on pace to add nearly $2 trillion to the deficit.

The tax scam is such a disaster that Republicans don’t even want to campaign on it. In the recent special election in Ohio’s 12th Congressional District, Republicans abandoned speaking about the tax bill, instead focusing on ugly anti-immigrant rhetoric to rile up their far-right base.

It’s the same story across the country, with Republicans talking less and less about their failed economic policies, turning to racist ads about immigration instead.

After being busted for so many lies, no wonder Republicans are ignoring their one legislative “accomplishment” and would rather talk about anything else on the campaign trail.