ATR recently joined a coalition letter led by the National Taxpayers Union to oppose the Federal Reserve considered proposal to operate a real-time payments system. The Fed’s system would directly compete with the private sector, putting nearly all customers at risk of delayed financial transactions by forcing financial institutions to choose between doing business with an existing private structure or waiting until their regulator builds a clearing system in the next five years.

In the past few years we have seen how technology has played an important role in facilitating faster payments between individuals compared to the long-established model of using checks to pay for goods and services. Aaron Klein from the Brookings Institution helps illustrate the delay in this outdated check cashing system:

If your payday was Friday, March 1 and you deposited your paycheck, it may not clear until sometime on Tuesday, March 5th. What do you do if the rent, childcare, and other fixed expenses are due the same day you get paid? Unless your paycheck is available the instant you deposit it (and that is not the case with direct deposit) you are stuck with a gap.

With technology advancement becoming cheaper and more widely available, customers can access the money immediately once it is received. Take Zelle for example, a person-to-person real-time payments system created by financial institutions for their customers to access funds sent to their bank accounts near-instantaneously. In other words, if David owes Ethan his portion for the lunch bill and both of them use Zelle, Ethan can pay David back immediately and those funds are available just about as fast as receiving a text message and opening it to read.

In 2014, The Clearing House Payments Company (an institution that provides much of the technological “plumbing” or “infrastructure” for conducting financial transactions) began the process of creating the real-time payments system in use today. The system would go live in November 2017, after large financial institutions put up the funding to build the system and has actively been attracting banks of all sizes to join the network. This benefits customers across multiple financial institutions who can send and receive payments to use near-instantaneously. The goal of The Clearing House and banks joining the system is to have all deposit holding banks using the service by the end of 2020, making the system “ubiquitous.”

A year after The Clearing House’s real-time payments system went live, the Federal Reserve published a request for comments to review and consider feedback of how the current privately created system is operating and if there was a need for the Federal Reserve to enter the market and create its own version. As George Selgin of the Cato Institute correctly points out, there would be several chilling effects the Federal Reserve would have in the marketplace should it move ahead with its own network:

No less importantly, unlike private sector providers the Fed does not have to convince shareholders that it can recover the costs involved in any new payments venture it undertakes. Thanks to its unique powers, the possibility that the Fed might compete head on with the private RTP network is likely to have an exceptionally chilling effect on RTP’s ability to attract new members, and to do so even despite RTPs first-mover advantage, and also despite any real efficiency advantages it might enjoy. Banks faced with substantial network-interface investment costs will hesitate to join RTP until they are certain of the Fed’s intention. Even if the Fed does not ultimately enter the market, this hesitation will itself be costly, because it will delay the achievement of a ubiquitous system. The likelihood that the Fed will take several years to establish its own RTGS system will compound this delay. The case of rival private-sector entrants differs, both because such entrants are only likely to contemplate entering the market if their stakeholders believe them to be capable of operating more efficiently than established rivals, or of offering services that are clearly superior to theirs, and because they must in fact offer superior or less expensive services to gain market share.

For these reasons, Americans for Tax Reform opposes any entrance of the Federal Reserve into the real-time payments market and is proud to join the coalition of organizations who share this view.

Click here to view National Taxpayer Union’s coalition letter.

2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has repeated multiple times that he will impose a tax increase if elected.

“You’re going to pay more in taxes,” Sanders said during a Fox News town hall in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on April 15 . At the same town hall he said, “Are people going to pay more in taxes? Yes.”

[Click here for video]

“And yes, we have to raise individual tax substantially higher than they are today,” Sanders said during an interview with Jake Tapper on July 5, 2015. 

On a separate CNN townhall hosted by Chris Cuomo in Des Moines, Iowa on Jan. 25, 2016, Sanders promised that “yes, we will raise taxes, yes we will.”

See also:

Biden: “First thing I’d do is repeal those Trump tax cuts.”

Joe Biden broke his middle class tax pledge

“Mayor Pete” Calls for Steep Tax Hike on Homes and Businesses

Kamala Harris Vows Repeal of Tax Cuts “on Day One”

Biden: “When I’m President, if God willing I am, we’re going to reverse those Trump tax cuts.”

Yesterday, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai publicly announced his support for the merger between telecommunications companies T-Mobile and Sprint.

While Chairman Pai’s blessing isn’t an official approval of the merger, it’s one big step forward to realizing the benefits a combined T-Mobile and Sprint—which, if approved, would create a new company, the New T-Mobile—would bring.

The merger will also be instrumental to helping the United States maintain its position as the global leader in innovation and technology.

In particular, the New T-Mobile would help America win the global 5G race. According to a recent CTIA report, while the United States assigns the most low- and high-band spectrum for wireless, there is room for major improvement regarding mid-band assignment. Both T-Mobile and Sprint have committed to a significant build-out of their mid-band spectrum holdings.

A merger between the two companies would also lead to a more connected America. According to Chairman Pai’s statement, their combined network would cover at least two-thirds of the nation’s rural population with high-speed 5G. In fact, within three years, 85 percent of rural Americans will have access to reliable wireless service. T-Mobile and Sprint have also said they will create an in-home broadband product, which would also serve rural areas.

This will help Americans in typically underserved areas stay connected online. In other words, this will help school kids do their homework, businesses expand and families keep in touch with relatives across the country.

Detractors point out that a merger could lead to decreased competition or job losses. To address the first point, a T-Mobile–Sprint merger would actually lead to more competition. The New T-Mobile will have approximately 126 million subscribers, allowing it to compete better with Verizon and AT&T, which have 150 million and 142 million subscribers, respectively.

Speculations that the combination will result in a loss of 28,000 jobs are flat out wrong. Currently, Sprint has 30,000 employees. If the New T-Mobile eliminates 28,000 jobs, the company would not be able to maintain its expanded operations. Rather, the new company will likely create 5,600 new customer care jobs.

Don’t listen to the naysayers, and think of the future. Not only will 5G connect more Americans to the internet, it will boost the United States’ global competitiveness and improve our standard of living.

The FCC should formally approve the T-Mobile–Sprint merger—it would be a boon for the economy and America as a whole.

Today at 1:00 p.m. Joe Biden will host a major rally in Philadelphia, where he will repeat his vow to repeal the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

“First thing I’d do is repeal those Trump tax cuts,” said Biden on May 4 in South Carolina.

"When I'm president, if God willing I am, we're going to reverse those Trump tax cuts," Biden said this week in New Hampshire.

Biden's promise to repeal the tax cuts is a threat to raise taxes. Repeal of the tax cuts would hit Pennsylvania hard:

• Pennsylvania households would lose their tax cut -- a 24.5 percent tax cut on average, according to data reported by H&R Block.
   
• Pennsylvania residents would again be forced to pay the highly regressive Obamacare individual mandate tax. 166,680 Pennsylvanians paid the tax totaling $108,842,000 according to the most recent IRS annual statistics ((2016). 81 percent of people hit with the tax made less than $50,000 a year, and 40 percent made less than $25,000 a year. This tax was one of the many violations by Biden of his pledge against any and all middle class taxes.
   
• 840,000 Pennsylvania households who claim the Child Tax Credit would see the credit slashed in half from $2,000 to $1,000.
   
• 4.4 million Pennsylvania households who claim the standard deduction would see it slashed in half. (TCJA nearly doubled the standard deduction from $6,300 to $12,200 for an individual and from $12,600 to $24,000 for a family.)
   

The tax cuts are helping a long list of Pennsylvania businesses give pay increases, benefit increases, and bonuses. For example:

• Uncle Charley's Sausage (Vandergrift, PA) hired new employees, purchased new equipment including a new sausage stuffer, and added a new production line.
   
• Hudson Facades (Linwood, PA) increased base pay and put $3,000 into every factor worker's 401(k) account.
   
• Almo Corporation, the Philadelphia-based appliance distributor, is investing in a new distribution center and an ongoing headquarters renovation that can accommodate 65 additional employees.
   
• Guy Chemical Company (Somerset, PA) increased wages, bonuses, and investment in new equipment including a new forklift, new laboratory furnishings, updated computer equipment, and a new software system.
   
• Dollar Bank (Pittsburgh, PA) gave $2,000 permanent raises for employees making $60,000 or below.
   

If Biden repealed the tax cuts, Pennsylvanians would also be stuck paying higher utility bills because the corporate tax rate would revert back to 35 percent. Thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the corporate rate was reduced to 21 percent, and as a direct result PA utility companies passed on these savings to customers in the form of lower electric, water, and gas bills.

Examples include Pike County Light & Power Company, PPL Electric Utilities Corporation, Wellsboro Electric Company, West Penn Power Company, PECO Energy Company, Peoples Gas Company, UGI Central Penn Gas Inc., Pennsylvania American Water Company, and Citizens Electric Company of Lewisburg.

From a nationwide perspective, if Biden repeals the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the following would happen:

•  A family of four earning the median income of $73,000 would see a $2,000 tax increase.
   
• A single parent (with one child) making $41,000 would see a $1,300 tax increase.
   
• Millions of low and middle income households would be stuck paying the Obamacare individual mandate tax.
   
• Utility bills would go up in all 50 states as a direct result of the corporate income tax increase.
   
• Small employers will face a tax increase due to the repeal of the 20% deduction for small business income.
   
• The USA would have the highest corporate income tax rate in the developed world.
   
• Taxes would rise in every state and every congressional district.
   
• The Death Tax would ensnare more families and businesses.
   
• The AMT would snap back to hit millions of households.
   
• Millions of households would see their child tax credit cut in half.
   
• Millions of households would see their standard deduction cut in half, adding to their tax complexity as they are forced to itemize their deductions and deal with the shoebox full of receipts on top of the refrigerator.
   

As noted by the New York Times, thanks to the GOP tax cuts, “Most people got a tax cut.”

The NYT also stated: “To a large degree, the gap between perception and reality on the tax cuts appears to flow from a sustained — and misleading — effort by liberal opponents of the law to brand it as a broad middle-class tax increase.”

The Washington Post also stated: “Most Americans received a tax cut.”

More evidence of the benefits flowing from the tax cuts can be found in a recent H&R Block report, which stated, “overall tax liability is down 24.9 percent on average.”

In Biden's home state of Delaware, the report found that residents received a 24.6% reduction in their taxes, on average.

Biden and the rest of the 2020 Democrats have thoroughly convinced themselves the tax issue is dead, but Americans will have their own say at the ballot box.

"Joe Biden is not Methuselah. He is Walter Mondale part deux," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. In 1984 Mondale famously promised to raise taxes if elected. He lost to Ronald Reagan in the electoral college 525-13, winning only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia.

See also:

Biden: “First thing I’d do is repeal those Trump tax cuts.”

Joe Biden broke his middle class tax pledge

Kamala Harris Vows Repeal of Tax Cuts “on Day One”

“Mayor Pete” Calls for Steep Tax Hike on Homes and Businesses

Biden: “When I’m President, if God willing I am, we’re going to reverse those Trump tax cuts.”