BUSINESS/ECONOMY/TAXES/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “After years of costly layoffs and plant closings, things are looking up for the heavy-machinery giant Caterpillar, which forecasts solid global sales growth and increased demand this year. Yet despite the corporate investment incentives at the center of President Trump’s tax overhaul, the company’s executives have no plans to supercharge investment or expansion. Caterpillar’s plans for new investment remain low by historical standards. Instead, the company has started using cash to repurchase its own stock as a way to return cash to shareholders, something it hadn’t done since 2015… Republicans sold the 2017 tax law as ‘rocket fuel’ for American investment and growth, saying that corporations — flush with cash from lower tax rates — would channel money back into the economy by building factories and offices and investing in equipment, which would help companies grow and provide winnings for workers. Economists say that may happen as companies readjust their spending plans over the coming months to take advantage of the new law, and they note that it is too early to tell how much the tax law will spread into the broader economy. But, so far, hard evidence of such an acceleration has yet to appear in economic data, which show more of a steady investment roll than a rapid escalation.”
-Matt Phillips and Jim Tankersley, “Investment Boom From Trump’s Tax Cut Has Yet to Appear,” The New York Times online, April 30, 2018