EU News Digest Latest News & Updates
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
President Donald Trump speaks after the U.S. Congress passed sweeping tax overhaul legislation, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, December 20, 2017.
President Donald Trump on Friday cheered several corporations’ decisions to issue employee bonuses following the GOP’s passage of its tax overhaul.
In a tweet, Trump asserted that “big companies and corporations” are “showering their workers with bonuses.” He added: “This is a phenomenon that nobody even thought of, and now it is the rage.”
Trump tweet
After Congress passed the legislation this week, at least five major companies announced they would give workers bonuses, boost their minimum wage, or increase capital investment. The GOP tax plan, which Trump is expected to sign into law soon, slashes the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent.
Still, the number of companies announcing such bonuses is only a tiny fraction of the number of major corporations in the United States. (Disclosure: Comcast, one of the companies that announced it would give bonuses, is CNBC’s parent company.)
The Republican tax plan chops the tax rate for corporations permanently, while temporarily trimming the tax burden for most — but not all — individuals. Republicans, who have long contended that the benefits of corporate tax cuts would filter to workers through increased productivity and wage growth, broadly cheered the bonus announcements this week.
In his tweet Friday, Trump also called the tax bill “popular.” In nearly all public opinion polls of the GOP plan, more respondents disapproved of the tax plan than approved of it.
Republican leaders contend more voters will warm to the plan when they start seeing the tax cuts reflected in their paychecks.
