An economic policy expert told the Senate Budget Committee on Wednesday that Americans should be outraged that large corporations funneled their massive gains from the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law into stock buybacks, further enriching executives and wealthy shareholders while skimping on worker pay.
"Whether you were for or against the 2017 tax cuts, I think we should all be angry that corporations took their tax windfalls and spent a trillion dollars of it in 2018 on stock buybacks instead of on worker wages or innovation," Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, said during a Senate Budget Committee hearing titled, "Making Wall Street Pay Its Fair Share: Raising Revenue, Strengthening Our Economy."
Watch Anderson's testimony:
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) noted in an analysis earlier this year that during the first four years after former President Donald Trump's tax cuts took effect, the country's largest corporations collectively spent $2.72 trillion repurchasing their own shares—more than they spent "on investments in plants, equipment, or software that might have created new jobs and grown the economy."
In written testimony submitted to the Senate Budget Committee for Wednesday's hearing, Anderson pointed to data from the Congressional Research Service showing that U.S. corporations spent $1 trillion total on stock buybacks during the first year of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which took effect in 2018. That year, U.S. billionaires paid a lower effective tax rate than working-class Americans for the first time in the country's history.
"S&P 500 firms alone spent $806 billion [on buybacks], a massive jump from the $519 billion they spent repurchasing stock in 2017," Anderson wrote. "Spending tax-cut windfalls and other profits on stock buybacks siphons resources from worker wages, R&D, and other productive investments that stimulate long-term growth. Analysts have documented the association between buybacks and worker layoffs, as well as reduced capital investment and innovation and wage stagnation."
In a Wednesday op-ed forCommon Dreams, Labor Institute executive director Les Leopold pointed out that John Deere, for example, has spent $12.2 billion on stock buybacks over the last two years alone while simultaneously slashing hundreds of jobs and offshoring production.
Leopold blasted the practice as "a blatant form of stock manipulation that was illegal until deregulated by the Reagan administration."
"For too long, Wall Street lobbyists have wielded excessive power to shape our tax code."
Wednesday's hearing was held following fresh reports that congressional Republicans are gearing up to slash taxes for the rich and large corporations even further if they seize control of the Senate in November and Trump—the presumptive GOP presidential nominee—wins another four years in the White House.
Anderson urged senators to use the looming expiration of some provisions of the 2017 tax law as an opportunity for reforms that target corporations that pay their CEOs excessively, tax Wall Street speculation, and discourage stock buybacks. In her written testimony, Anderson noted that increasing the 1% excise tax on corporate stock buybacks to 4% would generate $238 billion in new federal revenue over the next decade.
"For too long, Wall Street lobbyists have wielded excessive power to shape our tax code in ways that allow this lucrative sector to pay far less than their fair share of all the public services and infrastructure necessary for a healthy economy," Anderson wrote. "Continuing the status quo—or returning to the pre-2017 tax code—will not be acceptable if we are to meet the public investment needs of our time and reverse our country's staggering economic and racial disparities."
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