The American economy had its weakest performance in three years during the first three months of President Trump’s administration, despite his promise of 4% economic growth and that we would have the most tremendous winningest economy in the world. 

But instead, Trump has opened his administration with an “anemic” 0.7% growth. Spending fell to 0.3%, the lowest level in seven years.

Trump spent his entire election campaign making up outrageous lies about President Obama’s economy, which saw 75 months of consecutive growth, created 11.3 millions jobs, and left Trump with the healthiest economy our nation has had in a decade.

“As you know, our administration inherited many problems across government and across the economy. To be honest, I inherited a mess. It’s a mess. At home and abroad, a mess” complained Trump earlier this year. 

But the numbers tell a very different story.

The post Trump’s First Quarter Economic Numbers Just Came Out… appeared first on Occupy Democrats.

But the one-page document they presented to the American made it clear that all that talk was just a smokescreen to hide Trump’s true intentions – to make sure he and his billionaire buddies never have to pay taxes again.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof skewered Trump’s tax plan in a brutal op-ed published today which sums the situation up perfectly: “This Isn’t Tax Policy; It’s a Trump-Led Heist.”

Trump’s new tax “plan” (more like an extremely vague plan for a plan) is an irresponsible, shameless, budget-busting gift to zillionaires like himself.

This isn’t about “jobs,” as the White House claims. If it were, it might cut employment taxes, which genuinely do discourage hiring. Rather, it’s about huge payouts to the wealthiest Americans — and deficits be damned! If Republicans embrace this “plan” after all their hand-wringing about deficits and debt, we should build a Grand Monument to Hypocrisy in their honor.

President Trump’s tax plan is specifically designed to eliminate what little tax he already does pay. His released 2005 tax return shows that the paid $31 million through the AMT tax, which is one of the taxes that just so happened to be specifically targeted for elimination.

Kristof goes on to call out Trump for trying to spin the same old widely-debunked voodoo economic claptrap that Republicans have been pushing for three decades now and betraying his promise to defend and uplift the American middle class.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says Trump’s tax “plan” would be paid for partly “with growth” — which means that he has no idea how to pay for it.

Effectively, we’d borrow from China or other countries to finance huge tax breaks for Trump and his minions. And this is populism?

This is the very opposite of “populism.” Trump’s “tax plan” is nothing less than an act of class warfare by the ultrawealthy elites.

Trump and his band of pillaging plutocrats would deprive our nation of its future by exploding the deficit by seven trillion dollars in the first decade, money that will sit in the bank vaults of the oligarchs collecting dust instead of being spent to repair our nation’s failing infrastructure, care for the most vulnerable in our population, and cultivate a vibrant and diverse civil society.

When asked how this will help the middle class, Secretary Mnuchin had no answers.

And once again, the American middle class will have to pay for it, just like we had to pay to bail out the oligarch class when they crashed the stock market and caused the Great Recession.

Trump’s shamelessly avaricious intent grimly illustrates the arrogance with which the wealthy elites wield their power in the United States,  knowing they are insulated from consequence by their millions and content to plunge the rest of us into poverty.

The people of America must mobilize and send a shockwave during the 2018 midterms warning Trump and his cronies this kind of naked plutocracy will not be tolerated in a free republic.

Read the full article here.

The post Trump Just Tried To Screw The Middle Class. The NY Times’ Response Is Perfect appeared first on Occupy Democrats.

This could lead to another government shutdown.

This is not an empty threat. Republicans are going to need Democrat votes to pass the short-term spending bill thanks to conservatives who are opposed to government funding bills.

Hoyer said in an e-mail:

If Republicans announce their intention to bring their harmful TrumpCare bill to the House Floor tomorrow or Saturday, I will oppose a one-week Continuing Resolution and will advise House Democrats to oppose it as well.

Republicans continue to struggle to find the votes to pass a bill that will kick 24 million Americans off their health coverage, allow discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions, and impose an age tax on older Americans. That’s why they are trying to jam it through the House before their Members can hear from the American people this weekend about their opposition to this horrible legislation.

If Republicans pursue this partisan path of forcing Americans to pay more for less and destabilizing our county’s health care system — without even knowing how much their bill will cost — Republicans should be prepared to pass a one-week Continuing Resolution on their own.

This development comes as bipartisan negotiators are coming close to an agreement in both chambers on a bill that would prevent a shutdown. Republicans are seeking the bill in order to give negotiators time to solve some lasting sticking points in next year’s budget.

Republicans are especially keen to give Trump a win within the 100-day timeline and are trying to drum up support for the new healthcare overhaul. Their last attempt, which included repealing Obamacare, failed last month when Tea Party Republicans blocked it for not being extreme enough.

Hoyer and Democrats, by threatening a shutdown, are trying to destroy any renewed efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare.

It’s a sad day when the only way to stop Trump and Republican’s ideological crusade against the sick and the poor is to threaten a government shutdown. Shutdowns are bad news for everybody. Not only are 1.8 million public workers sent home without pay, but many vital public services are closed until the situation is resolved.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

The post House Democrats Just Made A Trumpcare Threat Republicans Can’t Ignore appeared first on Occupy Democrats.

Trump spoke to the two leaders, reassuring them that he was seeking a renegotiation instead of a withdrawal from the deal. The White House issued a statement, saying:

President Trump agreed not to terminate NAFTA at this time and the leaders agreed to proceed swiftly, according to their required internal procedures, to enable the renegotiation of the NAFTA deal to the benefit of all three countries.

This statement came mere hours after it was revealed that Trump’s administration was considering the option of announcing the President’s intent to withdraw from the agreement by way of an executive order. Officials were supposedly pushing for the order to be finalized and signed prior to the 100-day benchmark.

On the campaign trail, Trump pledged that he would announce either a renegotiation of a withdrawal from NAFTA by the 100-day point. He regularly criticized Hillary Clinton for having approved the deal, which he claims did not benefit the U.S.

Thanks to this development, we can now add this to a list of promises Trump has broken.

However, it would appear that realpolitik has once again presented a significant hurdle to Trump’s agenda. Trump could pull out of NAFTA, but he would need congress’ backing to make it permanent, and he did not have the support of Republican lawmakers who recognized what a disastrous decision this would be.

The backlash from US business would also have been huge, not to mention the damage that would be done to relations with Canada and Mexico.

Trump attempted to save face this morning with two Tweets:

I received calls from the President of Mexico and the Prime Minister of Canada asking to renegotiate NAFTA rather than terminate. I agreed..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 27, 2017

…subject to the fact that if we do not reach a fair deal for all, we will then terminate NAFTA. Relationships are good-deal very possible!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 27, 2017

However, these tweets do not hide the fact that Trump had to face the economic reality that the United States needs NAFTA just as much as Mexico and Canada do.

NAFTA was signed on January 1st, 1994 and added Mexico to the previous U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement that had been in place since 1989. The agreement cut import tariffs for nearly all manufactured products, and trade grew considerably between the three countries.

Some U.S. workers suffered wage stagnation because of NAFTA, but the overall growth was good, and NAFTA cannot be blamed for the overall loss of U.S. jobs.

It is still unclear why Trump dislikes NAFTA, but his comments have centralized on the bilateral trade deficit with Mexico. The President has called out companies such as General Motors and Ford for moving production facilities and jobs to Mexico, and has threatened Mexico with import tariffs and border taxes as a consequence.

Trump appears to have dropped one of his key campaign pledges after not a lot of opposition. His fans and voters will no doubt see this as him selling out, and the White House will no doubt try to spin the story as an opportunity to a revamped trade negotiation.

This story speaks volumes about the President’s resolve, or rather, lack thereof.

The post Trump Just Backed Down On His NAFTA Campaign Pledge appeared first on Occupy Democrats.

In other words, Trump is failing on one of his major campaign promises: “make American work again.” He is trying to cover it up by repeatedly taking credit for jobs that were created under President Obama’s administration. Earlier this week, Trump tweeted “JOBS JOBS JOBS” like a toddler who just shouts a favorite word repeatedly.

This is the worst March for job creation since 2013. After steering the country of the Great Recession caused by the financial crisis in 2008, Obama was forced to hand over America to an idiot who has no idea what he is doing, or what employment statistics even mean.

Earlier this week Trump told a group of CEOs that he thinks unemployment figures are calculated using a bad method. According to Trump, a person who gives up looking for work is counted as unemployed and Trump thinks that is wrong. In fact, unemployment statistics only measure the unemployed who are actively seeking work.

Not only is he ignorant, Trump has staffed his Cabinet with billionaire bankers and people obviously in the pockets of special interest groups. Trump has surrounded himself with aides who will promote the interests of the wealthy over the interests of average Americans. This spells disaster for the middle and working classes over the next four years.

The post Trump Just Fell Silent As Devastating New Jobs Report Released appeared first on Occupy Democrats.

Unfortunately for these voters, however, Trump and his staff have come to realize that saying and doing are two completely different things. Robert Murray, the founder and CEO of Murray Energy, which is the largest privately owned coal miner in the U.S., has given Trump a fact check he will not appreciate.

Murray met with Trump in February to discuss reviving the coal industry. However, when speaking about Trump’s plan to increase the number of coal mining jobs Murray states:

I suggested that he temper his expectations. Those are my exact words, he can’t bring them back.

Murray is right. The coal industry is not going to make a comeback; it has been replaced with cheaper, cleaner natural gas.

Many miners and supporters of fossil fuels like to point to Obama-era environmental legislation which they say has prevented a level playing field for the coal industry by burdening them with unnecessary and unfair regulations.

One of the most hated environmental laws prevented coal miners from polluting America’s small streams and rivers. One of the first things Trump did after taking office was roll this back.

In reality, coal is not economically viable anymore, even without critical environmental regulations.

Mary Anne Hitt, the director of the anti-coal Beyond Coal Campaign, says the same thing as Murray:

I live in West Virginia and I understand that there is a lot of optimism among some that coal will make a comeback. The industry likes to point to pollution standards for the decline in jobs, but the reality is the market has markedly changed.

Friends of the coal industry now populate the highest perches of our agencies and they will do their best to unwind clean air and water regulations and we will fight them every step of the way, but even if all their wishes come true, I don’t think there will be a big boost to the coal industry.

If these two opposing sides agree that the coal industry is in irreversible decline, then you can be sure that it’s true.

If Trump wants to save the mining industry, he has to do a few things. First, he has to fight automation: jobs in mining are declining because jobs previously done by humans can now be done more efficiently and cheaply by robots and artificial intelligence. Why bother hiring a human, who needs to be insured and paid per hour, when you can buy a machine and hire one person to maintain lots of them?

The second thing Trump needs to do is cut back on fracking. Shale gas mining, which saw a boom under Obama, has gradually been eating away at coal’s market share. It’s cheaper, easier and less invasive to acquire and had the tacit support of a U.S. Government that was trying to re-establish energy independence. If Trump wants to get coal mining jobs, he has to fight big oil, which he won’t.

Finally, the Obama-era environmental regulations made it costly to run coal plants and coal powered businesses, causing many to switch to natural gas. They’re not going to pay to switch back to coal simply because Trump favors that particular industry.

Unfortunately for the coal miners of America, Trump made a promise he was never able to keep. They fell for one of the oldest political tricks in the book: Find a marginalized and downtrodden economic minority, promise things you can never deliver and enjoy the free votes.

While Trump has said he will tackle the environmental regulations imposed by Obama, he has said nothing about fighting automation, and he has promised to expand fracking. It can be safely assumed that the President has abandoned America’s coal miners to their fate.

The coal miners are one of the first working-class communities that voted for Trump to be abandoned by the unabashed and shameful conman. They won’t be the last. It is a bittersweet state of affairs when one of the most likely ways of getting rid of this President is through the economic and financial misery of millions of working people.

The post This Coal CEO Just Destroyed Trump’s Promise To Bring Back Mining appeared first on Occupy Democrats.

It appears President-elect Donald Trump will keep his campaign promise to stop AC Carrier from moving over 1,000 jobs from Indianapolis to Mexico, but not without selling out his promise to actually penalize outsourcing companies.

Trump’s negotiations with United Technologies, Carrier’s parent company, are two-sided, The New York Times reports. Boardroom negotiations tend to be.

While Carrier announced intentions to keep 1,000 workers employed at the Indiana plant, The Times quotes sources who say Trump is offering the corporate giant tax incentives and even favorable tax code changes in return. United Technologies already nets about $5 billion per year in government contracts.

Last week, Indiana Democrat Joe Donnelly highlighted the irony of U.S. workers paying taxes to companies who lay them off.

“It’s unfair to ask the same workers who have been laid off to pay tax dollars that will go to the company that fired them,” Donnelly told The Times.

In a new twist of economic acrobatics, Trump’s deal may lead to an equally perverse scenario: Even more taxpayer money being diverted to any company that merely threatens to move U.S. jobs overseas.

Trump’s agent in the deal is Vice President-elect and current Indiana Governor Mike Pence, who is brokering state tax perks for the company, according to Mother Jones.

Looking for a tax break? Threaten to move 2,000 jobs and wait for a boardroom visit from President Trump.

The President-elect won’t even have to worry about his promise to actually penalize Carrier with a 35-percent tariff should it move forward with its plan to move its Indianapolis AC factory. The company will get a pass on threats that government contracts be withheld from companies that outsource manufacturing jobs, a plan first posited by Bernie Sanders.

Trump gets winning headlines. Carrier gets a holiday care package. U.S. taxpayers, meanwhile, are on the hook to subsidize a company that threatened to move their jobs to Mexico.

Talk about the art of the deal.

The post Trump Said He’d Punish Outsourcing Companies. Instead, He’s Bribing Them With Tax Breaks appeared first on Occupy Democrats.

Christmas has arrived early for Wall Street in the early days of the Donald Trump era. A populist candidate who railed against shady financial interests on the campaign trail is now putting together an administration that looks like an investment banker’s dream.

Bank stocks have already begun soaring as a new era of Republican deregulation dawns, interest rates are rising rapidly, and last week the tough regulator President Obama named to head of the SEC, quit. The news that’s making bankers feel like they just won a bonus is who is rumored for high positions in the next Republican administration, mainly a cadre of Goldman Sachs insiders and billionaires:

Former Goldman Sachs banker Steven Mnuchin has been seen at Trump Tower amid rumors that he’s the leading candidate for Treasury secretary. Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross appears headed to the Commerce Department. Steve Bannon, another Goldman alum, will work steps from the Oval Office. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon remains a possibility as Treasury secretary and will serve as an outside adviser if he doesn’t get the job.

It’s a restoration of Wall Street power — and a potential flip in the way the industry is regulated — perhaps unparalleled in American history.

There was a glimmer of good news today, when central bank Chairwoman Janet Yellen confirmed that she will stay in her role as America’s top bank regulator at The Fed through January 2018. It means that banks will be able to revert to casino style gambling in little more than 14 months from today, when the President-elect would select its next Chairperson, although Yellen would remain on the Board guiding the bank until 2024.

After Chairwoman Yellen leaves, the door could open to a complete realignment of America’s financial regulations – as in, they will all be gone.

GOP congressmen are already taking aim at watering down or eliminating the Dodd-Frank Act and crippling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It’s architect was Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, and along with the CFPB they recently busted Wells Fargo’s national account creation fraud scheme and held them accountable in public.

Warren, meanwhile, no longer has any real power beyond her ability to rhetorically rally the left and try to turn populists — who have no love for Wall Street — against the incoming president. And that’s exactly what she’s attempting to do.

“Based on public reports, your transition team and your potential cabinet include over twenty Wall Street elites, industry insiders, and lobbyists,” Warren wrote in a public letter to Trump on Tuesday, demanding that he drop lobbyists and Wall Street executives from his transition team and administration. “Should you refuse, I will oppose you, every step of the way, for the next four years. I will champion the millions of Americans you will fail to protect.”

“I do think that Republicans will pick at it piece by piece and by the time they are done it will be largely weakened,” said Ian Katz, director at Capital Alpha Partners. “It may take a while, you can’t just flip a switch and do all this stuff. But eventually they can do it.”

The looming combination of higher interest rates and weak or nonexistent bank regulation, along with massive tax cuts to the wealthy is precisely the same legislative agenda that the Bush Administration fed America’s economy during its second stint of one party rule in Washington.

The results were catastrophic, as we know all too well. We are only eight years removed today from the worst global financial crisis since America’s Great Depression-era, which incidentally began following the last time Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress and the White House.

The only thing standing between deregulation causing America’s economy to flame out like one of Donald Trump’s bankrupt casinos, is Senator Elizabeth Warren and her Democratic party supporters voices and their individual actions in the coming months.

But things are looking bleak.

The post Trump Vowed To Take On Wall Street, But They’re Already Celebrating appeared first on Occupy Democrats.

For roughly the last century, electing a Democrat has been the better option for the economy, with Dems creating more than double the jobs than that of Republicans, and faster.

Even when taking the percent change of number of jobs held, or scaling population (to avoid counting an increased population, thus falsely indicating an increase in jobs), Democrats still prove more successful than Republicans in job creation, and by a wide margin.

Another way of studying job creation is to take unemployment into account. When a Democrat is in the White House, logically unemployment decreases as well. By this rational, of course, when a GOP takes the Oval Office unemployment rises (and has risen under this party) since 1945.

Indeed, this extends to state and federal levels—the top 20 years of national GDP growth have all been under a Democrat. This is not only true for GDP, but for all economic growth in general—extending to the stock market, income growth and debt as a percentage of GDP.

As if you needed more proof that the blue party is better for the economy, simply turn to the numbers over the last 70 years. When it comes time for Election Day, it’s a matter of fact that with every Democratic ballot cast, it’s almost guaranteed the country will be in a better economic position than if a Republican is sworn in.

The post Fact Check: Democrats Have Created Twice As Many Jobs As Republicans Since 1950’s appeared first on Occupy Democrats.

Trump’s tactic is to dispute the value of his properties, undercutting them by up to 90% of what they are actually worth. Residents are outraged over this, and the entire country—including his legion of blind supporters—should be too. For years Trump has avoided the most basic requirement the government demands of its citizens— to pay taxes. When asked about his tax returns or his tax rate, he responds with a defiant, “none of your business” – however, it is very much our business. The nation deserves to know how much Trump has cheated us out of, such as funding for things like education or infrastructure, by not paying tax.

Trump’s companies have been engrossed in tax disputes every single year since the 1980s. In fact, since Trump declared his candidacy in June, at least five of his companies were issued warrants for back takes totalling more than $13,000 (which feels like a very conservative number). This in itself, goes to show the degree of neglect paid to tax, as getting a warrant from the state is not exactly the first step in collection. “You have to ignore us to end up with a tax warrant,” says Geoff Gloak, spokesman for the state Department of Taxation and Finance. “We try to work with taxpayers to resolve the debt, long before it becomes a warrant.”

If these warrants go ignored further, the tax claim is resolved in court. This is often a cheaper solution to paying taxes up-front, and obviously, Trump factors this in, trying to pay as little as possible. He has been very upfront about ignoring taxes and claiming devalued properties as a strategy: “I fight like hell to pay as little as possible,” he said at a New York news conference in September. “I fight like hell always, because it’s an expense. And you know, I feel … and I fight. I have the best lawyers and the best accountants, and I fight, and I pay. But it’s an expense.”

In Briarwood, NY, for instance, Trump has claimed a 140-acre golf course is worth 1.4 million, as opposed to its real value of 15.1 million. With this declaration, Trump cheated the Westchester community out of the $471,000 they should have collected for local schools, instead only paying $47,000. Local residents, that Trump has blatantly robbed from, are up in arms over his tactic of declaring property is worth a fraction of what it should be to avoid paying his fair share of taxes.

“What he’s claiming is way off,” says Briarcliff Manor homeowner Steve Cohen. “I see people playing there. The club looks fabulous. It certainly isn’t falling into disrepair.”

Trump’s attorney is not shrinking away from this fact, owning up to the fact that the property is worth well over what the camp has claimed. “Maybe it’s worth $12 million, maybe $13 million,” Rodner told The Journal News. “Now, my value is my opinion until it’s proven otherwise.”

The property in Briarcliff is among 20 other properties which Trump has valued at “more than $50 million,” which accounts for $1 billion of his $10 billion net worth. Someone with this level of money should be completely banned from bringing property value into dispute; he should be forced to pay not only what he owes, but more than that. He should not hide from this responsibility with lawyers and complaints, but be glad to pay it. The greed Trump has demonstrated is disgusting and inexcusable—there is no way America can choose this man to represent us with a clear conscious.

Among other tax disputes involving Trump entities:

– Trump Mortgage owes federal taxes from 2006 and 2007 totaling more than $4,800, according to two federal tax liens filed in New York.

– Trump’s businesses have sued the New York City Tax Commission 55 times from the mid-1990s through 2011, disputing the city’s property assessment values on everything from apartment complexes once owned by his father to his core buildings and companies.

– Trump-related companies have become embroiled in disputes over sales taxes owed to New York state and New York City. Tax warrants on file in New York County court found that over the past 27 years, Trump entities owed about $300,000 in back taxes, which were eventually paid.

– The battles can save Trump millions of dollars. In 2006, Trump won a ruling on his 58-story headquarters at Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan. It was the sixth time since 1999 that his appeals against the Tax Commission reached the courtroom, records show. The net result was about a 10% reduction over 10 years on the building — worth about $3 million to Trump.

This also goes to show Trump’s 1% mentality. In spite of having the money to buy and renovate incredible properties, he will do anything he can to hoard these profits. It is a grotesque display of greed, one that we cannot let go unchecked. The systems that Trump takes advantage of have been built in for the mega-wealthy; there is no alternative to paying taxes if you make under a million dollars annually. Trump has hustled the system at the expense of every citizen. As president, he will not change this behavior. His plans are completely unclear; the only thing that’s certain is he will use his new role to get away with even more corrupt dealings. As he’s ambiguously stated as early as last week, he is “willing to pay more” taxes personally (though he did not explicitly mention his businesses) and that “taxes for the rich will go up somewhat” under his presidency—you can’t get more vague than that. It’s far past time that Trump and the rest of his oligarch buddies paid their fair share.

The post States Have Sued Trump Over A Hundred Times For Not Paying Taxes appeared first on Occupy Democrats.