Senator Elizabeth Warren recently gave a speech presenting her version of an economic agenda which she said would help working people. She railed against giant corporations, corporate tycoons, and a rigged corporate system, and called for higher taxes on big corporations.
Unfortunately, her anti-corporate agenda is exactly the wrong way to help working people. It is indisputable that the best way to help working people is to increase economic growth, leading to more jobs, increased wages, and a higher standard of living. And economic growth is powered by American corporations and American free markets.
In 2017, the U.S. reduced the corporate tax rate from the highest in the world level of 35% to a globally competitive 21%. Since then, U.S. economic growth has surged, far outpacing every other G7 country and other advanced countries by a significant margin.
The lower corporate tax rate has helped American companies grow and expand, and become the most dominant in the world. American corporations are driving growth, through capital investment, technology, research and development, and the best supply chains in the world.
Foreign investment is flowing into America, the most in the world. Everyone in the world wants to invest in America and American corporations. American corporations are dominating global markets, leading the world in innovations and technological achievements. Their success compared to the rest of the world is stunning.
By comparison, the other G7 nations have barely grown at all in recent years, experiencing falling investment and productivity, fewer jobs, and stagnant wages. The U.S. economy is now more than double the combined GDPs of Germany, France, and the UK. The U.S. and EU economies were roughly the same size fifteen years ago. Now the U.S. is nearly 1.5 times the size of the EU economy, and the U.S. income per capita is twice as high.
While other countries have become poorer, the U.S. has grown richer, with the largest share of private wealth in the world, much of it attributable to American corporations. Most of the world’s largest corporations are in America, and they provide tremendous benefits for working people and their families. They employ millions of Americans, pay the highest wages in the world, and provide the best health care, child care, and retirement benefits. They lift millions of people into the middle-class every year, and help millions of workers build wealth through stock option benefits.
So, before Senator Warren and others go after American corporations with damaging higher tax rates, they need to recognize how much American corporations improve the lives of working people. They provide the best economic mobility, financial security, and incredible wealth creation to American families. They should be applauding them not attacking them.
