Category Archives: tax

DOGE dividends are daft

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February 22, 2025 — The “DOGE dividends” that Elon Musk is promoting are beyond absurd.  I’m not even completely sure that the Musk-Trump team will succeed in cutting government spending on net.  But assuming it does,

  • the savings will not be enough to fund the renewal of the 2017 tax cuts, which Trump has pledged to do,
  • let alone also finance the new tax cuts he promised in the campaign (e.g., exempting tips),
  • let alone eliminate the budget deficit,
  • let alone pay down the debt.
    Even if he does just some of the tax cuts he has promised, he won’t have any money left over for a DOGE rebate.
    “Economists Reveal the Truth Behind Musk and Trump’s ‘DOGE Dividends’,” The Daily Beast, Feb. 20, 2025.
    “Trump’s tax cuts and Musk’s Doge show they have no idea about US debt,” the Guardian, Nov. 21, 2024.
    • read more

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    Can Musk find $2 trillion in spending cuts for Trump?

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    Nov. 24, 2024 –When the US election was called for Donald Trump the night of November 5, the stock market rose but the bond market fell.  The yield on 10-year US government bonds increased from 4.3 % to 4.4%, where it remained 10 days later.  The long-term rate had been below 4.0 % in September.  The combination – stock market up but bond market down – strongly suggests that the news of Trump’s victory was seen as implying higher government budget deficit and debt numbers in the future. read more

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    Six Practical Proposals for Progressive Tax Policy

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    December 20, 2019 —  It was quite a surprise, three years ago, when Donald Trump won a majority in the US Electoral College, thus becoming the 45th president.  In the search for explanations, one immediately dominated:  Democrats had not been sufficiently aware of the problem of income inequality or had neglected to propose good solutions to it.

    This is presumably the logic behind radical proposals coming from some of the leading contenders for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential election. Senator Elizabeth Warren, for example, has proposed an annual tax on the wealth of the wealthiest Americans (originally to be 2 % per year, but now up to 6 %). read more

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