Mark

Republicans call themselves deficit hawks, but their Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 will add $3 trillion to the federal budget deficit. It won’t be long until Republican deficit hawks start screaming about the need to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to reduce the deficit they created. But we don’t have to wait until then to see reduced support for programs supporting the neediest among us.

The Census Bureau classifies 46% of renters as cost burdened, because they spend more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities. These renters rely up on affordable housing subsidized by low-income housing tax credits (LIHTC) established under the Tax Reform Act of 1986. The LIHTC program is responsible for almost 700,000 affordable housing units built or converted during the last two decades.

The picture is not so rosy going forward. The value of LIHTCs have already fallen 10% during Trumps term in office. As a result, Reis Commercial Real Estate Data and Analytics projects a 40% reduction in affordable housing units coming on line in 2019 through 2022.

The projected reductions in affordable housing stock are just more evidence that Republican tax cuts for the wealthy actually do not trickle down to the people most in need.

Gilad Edelman in “The Democrats Confront Monopoly,” Washington Monthly, Nov/Dec 2017:

“A slew of Washington Monthly articles had insisted that anti-monopoly policy would be good electoral politics, but there was never any evidence. That changed in April with a poll conducted by Hart Research Associates. The poll presented voters with a battery of questions and scenarios to probe their feelings on corporate consolidation.

“The poll found that voters were much more worried about how the very rich use their power to benefit themselves than about excessive government regulation. Eighty-six percent agreed with the statement ‘Our economy is increasingly dominated by a small number of very large corporations,’ and nearly 60 percent, including Rust Belt voters, said they were ‘extremely concerned’ that ‘Corporate monopolies control too much of our economy and our political system.’”

Gilad Edelman’s article contains a discussion of the disconnect between the Democrats’ message that workers are empowered and workers’ perception that they have no power and no control. The article also discusses the perception by workers that that the Democratic party isn’t listening to them.