April 3, 2018

My FIFTY-FIFTH Open Letter To Senator Pat Toomey

I'll be dropping this letter to Senator Pat Toomey in the mail today:
Dear Senator Toomey:

It's me, again - the constituent who writes for the local Pittsburgh-based political blog, "2 Political Junkies."

I'd like to ask you about HR 1 (the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act), specifically its impact on the economy. At your website, you that "This bill will spur significant new investment, business expansion, and new business startups, leading to more jobs, higher wages, a better standard of living for more Pennsylvanians."

A few months back a survey done by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta found something very different. Three researchers, writing at the Atlanta Fed blog, Macroblog, in January found that even after HR 1, "The typical firm isn't planning on a whole lot of additional capital spending or hiring" and that "roughly two-thirds of respondents indicated that the tax reform hasn't enticed them into changing their investment plans for 2018." They added that as for new hiring, roughly the same goes: a typical firm has not changed its hiring plans due to HR 1.

They produced a follow-up three months later. In that survey of the results they found that, "if anything, these firms have revised down their expectations for this year."

Senator, given your rather enthusiastic support of the legislation, can you explain to your constituents its rather disappointing results so far?

I await your response.
And I will be posting whatever response I get from him or his office.


Follow-up:

No comments: