RebE: It did not affect the economy to invest in capital enhancements by increasing jobs but used for stock buy back.
Look, I think we need to be humble here. I am not an economist, and possibly you are none also. And even if we were, “best of the economists to Gehinom” ^BS^BS, I mean, “predicted 10 out of last 5 recessions”. So, any smart economist can convince us with some magical thinking about “no inflation”, “just buying back stock”,”invest in the future”. We have no idea whether this arguments are true or they simply highlight one part of the picture, while ignoring another, on purpose or not.
So, I am always trying to look at simplest fundamentals: when you “tax the rich” in US, you forcibly take money from those who earned it, mostly thru business, rather than just inheritance, and give it to someone else who (a) needs it, (b) is not so productive. So, you want to take as little as possible and also give it to the right people who need it with right incentives.
With that said, Trump’s policies achieved improved employment for many disadvantaged groups – that is better help than welfare [omit nonsense that improvement was at the same rate as during Obama – Obama’s rate was from peak of unemployment to good economy 2 times longer than usual, and worse if you count broader measures due to many people going off-market, while Trump took it from nominally good employment to below “natural rate” of unemployment and into pockets of long-term minority unemployment. Just to illustrate the idea – decreasing unemployment from 10% to 8% is not very helpful, but from, say 2% to 0% would be a miracle].
So, now, government is taking a big chunk of money (and we’ll pay for that somehow, of course) and starts giving them away to all kind of interest groups, despite a diminished need for help. How is that good? Why would a long-term senator Biden is better in “investing” money than all businessmen he is taking them from. If he was “on the wrong side of every issue” in foreign policy (al pi Bob Gates), do you think he is better at domestic?