Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) attacked AT&T just hours before the telecommunications giant announced that they will distribute bonuses to over 200,000 employees and billions of dollars of domestic capital investment after Republicans passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Schumer, at a press conference on Wednesday, argued that the Republican tax reform bill will only increase corporations’ profits while doing nothing to benefit the average American worker.
“I love the example of AT&T,” Schumer contended. “Over the last ten years, AT&T has paid an average tax rate of eight percent a year. They have 80,000 fewer employees today than they had then.”
The New York Democrat added, “Tax breaks don’t lead to job creation. They lead to big CEO salaries and money for the very, very wealthy.”
After the congressional Republicans passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, AT&T announced that they plan to invest an additional $1 billion in the U.S. in 2018 and pay a special bonus of $1,000 to more than 200,000 U.S. employees once the Republican tax reform bill is signed into law.
“If the President signs the bill before Christmas, employees will receive the bonus over the holidays,” AT&T revealed in a press release on Wednesday.
“Congress, working closely with the President, took a monumental step to bring taxes paid by U.S. businesses in line with the rest of the industrialized world,” said AT&T chief Randall Stephenson. “This tax reform will drive economic growth and create good-paying jobs.”
Several other large American companies announced that they too will give their employees bonuses, wage hikes, and invest in America. Wells Fargo and Fifth Third Bank each announced that they will raise their minimum salary to $15 an hour and distribute to their employees a $1,000 bonus, while Boeing will invest over $300 million in their workers and charities. Comcast will distribute $1,000 bonuses to over 100,000 employees and invest over $50 billion in infrastructure over the next several years.
AT&T added in their statement, “Since 2012, AT&T has invested more in the United States than any other public company,” the company added. “Every $1 billion in capital invested in the telecom industry creates about 7,000 jobs for American workers, research shows.”
President Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday, “The Tax Cuts are so large and so meaningful, and yet the Fake News is working overtime to follow the lead of their friends, the defeated Dems, and only demean. This is truly a case where the results will speak for themselves, starting very soon. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!”