Out of touch much?
by digby
President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser — Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs president worth an estimated $266 million — appears to be completely clueless about what the average American family spends on a car, vacation or home improvement project.
Hours after falsely claiming that “the wealthy are not getting a tax cut” under Trump’s tax reform plan, Cohn appeared at a White House press briefing and spoke to what middle-class Americans have to look forward to. Based on the administration’s assumptions, he said, a typical family that has two children and earns $100,000 per year can expect annual tax savings of approximately $1,000.
“If we allow a family to keep another thousand dollars of their income, what does that mean?” he asked. “They can renovate their kitchen. They can buy a new car. They can take a family vacation. They can increase their lifestyle.”
First of all the median income is around 55,000. So people making 100k a year are not poor.
More importantly, it's been a very long time since a new car cost 1,000. In fact, Gary Cohn wasn't even born yet when it was. In 1950 the average cost of new car was $1,510.00 and by 1959 was $2,200.00
But then Gary Cohn is a multi-millionaire who is completely clueless just like his boss. These people think that a thousand dollars a year will change everything for someone who makes 100k because in their minds 100k is poverty level and cars only cost a thousand dollars.
By the way, in case you heard something exciting about the doubling of the standard deduction, think again. It's a bait and switch. They are combining the $6350 standard deduction and the $4,050 personal exemption. The combination of those two deductions today is $10,400. They aren't telling anyone that they are eliminating the personal exemption and are instead are calling the new "standard deduction" double at 12,000. That means people are really only going to get an additional 1600 dollars in deductions, not twice as much as they got before. That money is taxed at between 10 and 15% so the total savings for the average person taking the standard deduction will be $160 -$240 a year.
Of course Gary Cohn probably thinks that $240.00 buys a years worth of food for the average family so in their minds it's quite generous.
For the rest of us not so much.
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