Shot…
Sen. Marco Rubio, who was a Republican the last time we checked but maybe that’s changed, took to Twitter on Thursday to criticize corporations over stock buybacks instead of investing the money back in the company:
When corporation uses profits for stock buy back it’s deciding that returning capital to shareholders is better for business than investing in their products or workers. Tax code encourages this. No surprise we have work life that is unstable & low paying. https://t.co/yHV1qS0yLu
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) December 13, 2018
Chaser…
This is the “tax code” he just voted for, so LOL NOTHING MATTERS. From NBC News:
What did corporate America do with that tax break? Buy record amounts of its own stock
The White House promised ’70 percent’ of the tax cut would go to workers. It didn’t.
…
President Donald Trump signed the bill in December last year, saying the corporate tax cut would make it favorable for companies to bring back into the U.S. cash stashed in foreign operations.
“More than 70 percent of this [tax cut] will be returned to workers,” said White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders at a January press conference after the bill came into effect.
And liberal blue-checks are all over Rubio for his change of heart:
This is the exact argument that opponents of the tax bill used to argue against the legislation. You Voted for the bill. Are you just figuring this out or trying once again to take all sides of an issue?
— Joe Lockhart (@joelockhart) December 13, 2018
Recommended
Virtually every critic of the tax cut bill (which Rubio voted for, after getting an expansion of the child tax credit) said this is what would happen. https://t.co/ziE2gh45qh
— Sam Stein (@samstein) December 13, 2018
You voted for it, genius. https://t.co/wg2pNQlBXP
— ? (@Anthony) December 13, 2018
Literally everyone predicted this would happen https://t.co/qUFc0cEitR
— Lis Smith (@Lis_Smith) December 13, 2018
And yet, you refuse to examine the policies you promote and voted for that create this. https://t.co/cL5SMkAcnL
— Dianna E. Anderson ?️? (@diannaeanderson) December 13, 2018
As for stock buybacks in general, here’s a very good piece from the Harvard Business Review on why what Rubio tweeted is not accurate:
Indeed, the fundamental premise implicit in many buyback critiques — that more investment is good and less investment is bad — violates a basic idea in Finance 101. Investment only creates value if its returns are higher than the other projects shareholders could invest in. It takes no skill to simply spend money. Responsible companies don’t invest willy-nilly; they invest when opportunities are good, and show restraint when opportunities are bad. A restriction on repurchases could take us back to the 1970s, where CEOs simply wasted free cash on building empires – RJR Nabisco being a prime example – rather than paying it out to be allocated elsewhere. Repurchases allow shareholders to reallocate funds to young, high-growth firms that are screaming out for a cash injection. Relatedly, few argue that equity issuance is a definitively value-creating action; indeed, selling shares significantly reduces the stock price if done without shareholder approval – as such issuances are most likely to be motivated by empire building. Yet, repurchases are simply the opposite of equity issues.
***
Related:
TRY AGAIN: David Hogg lectures Marco Rubio about ‘kids getting shot,’ gets EDUCATED about gun laws https://t.co/naYQMTLUaH pic.twitter.com/ueRXcKK31c
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) December 9, 2018
SO MAD! CNN analyst Susan Hennessey FREAKS after being slammed for GARBAGE take on Rubio highlighting FL voter fraud https://t.co/cUOM4DcWvk
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) November 12, 2018
She MAD! CNN analyst Susan Hennessey defensive after being slammed for GARBAGE take on Rubio calling out FL voter fraud https://t.co/cUOM4DcWvk
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) November 12, 2018
Join the conversation as a VIP Member