The benefits of corporate tax reform as enacted under last year’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is proving “unambiguously positive for the economy.”
So says a report just released by the California Lutheran University Center for Economic Growth and Forecasting, which lists a number of large U.S. companies that have handed out bonus checks to their employees as a result of the legislation.
“The reform package signed into law is fundamental change of the very type we thought impossible,” notes the Thousands Oaks-based Center in its first quarter 2018 United States Executive Summary.
Noting that across-the-board tax cuts are expected to lead to a 0.5 percent increase in the growth of the nation’s economy, the summary says that that expected increase is on the lower side of what it calls “the possible benefits of corporate tax reform.”
But the summary also says those benefits are dwarfed by the 3.5 percent average growth rate seen in the decades after World War II.
What is contributing to a more limited economic growth this year, says the survey, is ongoing deficit spending as well as President Trump’s increased tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Nevertheless, the survey is predicting a 2.8 percent increase in the nation’s gross domestic product for the second quarter of this year, the largest percentage recorded since the spring of 2015.
The survey additionally predicts a 2.5 percent GDP growth rate for the last quarter of this year and the first three months of 2019.
By Garry Boulard
