It’s Thursday…
President Biden’s public schedule for 08/03/2023:
| Vacation Day 4 | On Thursday, the President has no public events scheduled Biden Beach House, Rehoboth Beach, DE |
| 12:00 PM | Out-of-Town Pool Call Time Biden Beach House, Rehoboth Beach, DE |
President Biden’s Twitter account is still kind of on vacation too…
“Bidenomics” Tweets
From Wednesday…
From Biden Bits (10/21/2021)…
A reminder the “55 major corporations paid” zero taxes soundbyte is based on a study released on April 2nd, 2021, by the Progressive Think Tank; Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
Politifact.com rated President Biden’s remarks from April as mostly true, because they were based on an study; it’s only mostly true because people criticized the study’s methodology:
The group’s study is based on an analysis of annual financial reports filed by publicly traded companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index or the Fortune 500 list of companies with the largest revenue.
But while this data comes from federally required disclosures, critics say that what is disclosed on these forms is calculated differently from these companies’ actual tax filings, which are private. In other words, the critics say, we don’t really know whether these companies paid zero in taxes or not.
[Snip]
William Gale, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, agreed that it can be difficult to infer a company’s actual tax position from its SEC filings. But he said the idea that many large corporations do pay zero in federal taxes is “by now well-established.”
“The non-partisan Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation has shown that in any given year for the past 15 years or so, about two-thirds of corporations with less than $1 billion in assets paid no federal corporate income tax, and one-third of corporations with assets greater than $1 billion paid no federal corporate income tax,” Gale said. And the committee, he said, “has access to corporations’ actual tax returns.”
[Their ruling]
Biden said, “A new, independent study put out last week found that at least 55 of our largest corporations used various loopholes to pay zero federal income tax in 2020.”
Biden is right that a study had been released days earlier by a non-governmental group that concluded that at least 55 large companies paid zero federal income taxes in 2020.
However, it may be incorrect to call the tax provisions cited in the report “loopholes,” since many of them are deliberate attempts by the government to set incentives through the tax code and may on their own be broadly popular.Critics also say that the financial disclosures used to compile the report are imperfect estimates of what the companies actually paid in taxes, since the accounting rules are different for the two types of filings. On the other hand, separate data from the Joint Committee on Taxation, which is based on actual tax returns, has supported the study’s general point.
We rate the statement Mostly True.
Politifact.com. 04/07/2021.
From Thursday…
From the White House…
FACT SHEET: Bidenomics at Work in 79 Metro Areas with Record Low Unemployment Rates
This morning, the latest metro area unemployment rates were released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showing 79 metro areas at their lowest rates on record including 41 that reached new record lows. The record lows can be found in every corner of the country, from Scranton to Spokane, from Manchester to Montgomery.
White House Press Secretary Jean-Pierre congratulated all of the communities helping to drive the strength of our national economy:
“The heart of Bidenomics is growing our economy from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down, and the 79 communities at record low unemployment show Bidenomics in action. With wages and consumer confidence going up, record numbers of Americans applying to start small businesses, and new factories being built in every corner of the country, America’s communities are being rebuilt around good jobs for the long term.”
President Biden’s agenda has driven the strongest economic recovery America has ever seen, with 13.2 million jobs added, a record number of states with unemployment rates at or below 3%, and the national unemployment rate below 4% for the longest stretch in more than 50 years. Economic growth has been strong even as annual inflation has fallen for twelve straight months. At the same time, the President’s Investing in America agenda is already taking hold, with more than $500 billion in new manufacturing and clean energy investments pouring in across the country, while shovels hit the ground rebuilding every state’s infrastructure.
President Biden will continue to invest in America’s communities, and continue to be a president for all Americans. See the full lists of metro areas with new record low unemployment rates and matching record lows below:
White House.gov. 08/02/2023.
Today in Wisconsin, Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Nokia and Sanmina Corporation in Pleasant Prairie, Kenosha County, Wisconsin to highlight the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to invest in high-speed internet, boost domestic manufacturing, and create good jobs. Vice President Harris’ visit coincides with Nokia announcing the manufacturing of broadband network electronics products for the BEAD program in the U.S. that will add up to 200 new jobs at Sanmina Corporation’s state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Pleasant Prairie, Kenosha County, Wisconsin. The announcement will make Nokia the first telecom company to begin manufacturing broadband electronics products in the United States in 2024. The Vice President will be joined by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Senator Tammy Baldwin.
The announcement is the latest in a string of domestic manufacturing announcements that have been spurred by the Biden-Harris Administration’s high-speed internet investments and Made-in-America policies, part of the President’s Investing in America agenda and a clear sign that Bidenomics is working. Across the high-speed internet industry, most electronics products are not currently manufactured in the U.S., but Buy America provisions in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are driving the onshoring of new manufacturing, particularly ahead of implementation of the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.
Just as Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Rural Electrification Act brought electricity to nearly every home and farm in America, President Biden and Vice President Harris are delivering on their historic commitment to connect everyone in America to affordable, reliable high-speed internet by the end of the decade. The Biden-Harris Administration’s historic Internet For All initiative is investing $90 billion to bring affordable, reliable high-speed internet service to every community in America is creating good-paying manufacturing jobs and revitalizing the domestic broadband manufacturing industry.
Other recent private sector domestic manufacturing announcements include:
White House.gov. 08/03/2023.
- Corning, a producer of optical fiber and cable, celebrated the expansion of its U.S. manufacturing capacity with the opening of a new manufacturing campus near Hickory, North Carolina. The more than $500 million investment to build fiber in the U.S. adds hundreds of manufacturing jobs to Corning’s more than 5,000 employees in the state.
- CommScope, a provider of broadband network equipment, recently announced a $60 million investment towards expanding its U.S. fiber optic cable manufacturing at its facility in Catawba, North Carolina. This investment will create more than 250 new jobs over the next five years, and create a fiber optic cable, “HeliARC” which is specifically designed for rural fiber network architecture.
- Prysmian, a manufacturer of optical fiber and fiber optic cable, announced a $30 million investment to convert its Jackson, Tennessee, copper cable facility into a state-of-the-art fiber optic cable manufacturing plant. As part of this plant retrofitting, Prysmian transitioned their workforce, retraining and retaining nearly 90% of employees. Prysmian has made a significant effort to hire and train female manufacturing workers, who make up 42% of plant employees compared to an industry average of about 25%.
Buy Americarequirements are key to ensuring we maximize the economic potential of the Internet for All initiative. Manufacturing the iron, steel, fiber, and construction materials needed to deliver affordable, reliable high-speed internet service to millions of Americans is an opportunity to create jobs right here at home. Funds for the BEAD program will be used to purchase items manufactured in the U.S., such as iron, steel, and fiber. Additional specific rules for spending BEAD program funds are forthcoming.
As President Biden said in his State of the Union address, “We’re making sure that every community — every community in America has access to affordable, high-speed Internet… I’m also announcing new standards to require all construction materials used in federal infrastructure projects to be made in America. Made in America. I mean it. Lumber, glass, drywall, fiber-optic cable.”
Today’s announcement is part of President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda, which includes the historic investments from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the American Rescue Plan. Together, these investments are unleashing a manufacturing boom, helping rebuild our infrastructure and bring back supply chains, lowering costs for hardworking families, and creating jobs that don’t require a four-year degree across the country. The private sector has already invested more than $500 billion in new manufacturing here in America, including for semiconductors, electric batteries, EV charging, rail manufacturing, water parts and more.
White House.gov. 08/03/2023.
VP’s remarks are scheduled for 2:20 p.m. D.C., time.
As to the “For decades, there’s been a law that says when the federal government spends your tax dollars, they must be spent on American workers and products…” Tweet, I didn’t find the “law” I found several prior laws starting around 1933 that did insist public buildings and such be built by Americans and with American products.
In my furious google searching I did find this from the Bipartisan Infrastructure and Jobs Act…
American Rescue Plan.
*Inflation Reduction Act.
CHIPS and Science Act.
*We can probably expect more cheer leading of the Inflation Reduction Act as it turns a year-old on 08/16/2023.*
Image 1) Remarks by President Biden and Vice President Harris at Signing of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument Proclamation (07/25/2023).
Image 2) Taken the 4th of July.
Image 3) Remarks by President Biden and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine Before Bilateral Meeting | Vilnius, Lithuania–White House YouTube is 8 minutes and 55 seconds long.
Image 4) Taken after (I think it was after) Remarks by President Biden, Prime Minister Kishida of Japan, and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine in a G7 Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine | Vilnius, Lithuania–White House YouTube is 7 minutes and 38 seconds long. *shrug*.
Kids are Cute Tweet
From Thursday…
Dear Joe Biden,
My name is Brenlee, and I’m a 5th grader at [blurred] in Fresno, CA. My class has representatives. We are writing to our reps about things we care about. I think that you have been doing a good job, and I wanted to say thank you.
There are lots of things you have done that we appreciate. I like that you passed been the Respect for Marriage Act, because I know people who are gay, and I’m glad that you passed the Respect for Marriage Act, because I know people who are gay, and I’m glad that they can get married. I also appreciate that you passed the Child Tax Credit, because it helped me and my family during the pandemic.
Nobody is perfect, and there are still things I wish you could do differently. For example, my class and I think it should be easier to get trampolines. However, overall, I think you are a pretty good president. Thank you, Brenlee
Twitter @POTUS. 08/03/2023.
This is an open thread
