As GOP hands them billions, Wells Fargo CEO admits he won't help workers

The admission flies in the face of Republican leaders like Speaker Paul Ryan, who, like Donald Trump, adheres to the conservative belief that tax cuts for mega-corporations lead to benefits that trickle down to average Americans.

It is an assertion that wasn’t true when Ronald Reagan said it or when George W. Bush said it. It has never been true.

Over the last few years, Well Fargo has been at the heart of a massive scandal where they were caught signing up customers for fake bank and credit card accounts that led to the resignation of its CEO. Republicans are rewarding the company by cutting its tax rate.

CNN reports that Wells Fargo will receive an 18 percent boost to its earnings from the GOP’s bill. That’s an increase of possibly $5 billion, based on the $21.93 billion Wells Fargo profited in 2016.

The current CEO, Tim Sloan, said that money will go to the company’s investors, and not to expenditures like new hiring.

In a presentation to investors, Sloan was asked what the company plans to do with the GOP-engineered windfall. He answered, “Is it our goal to increase return to our shareholders and do we have an excess amount of capital? The answer to both is, yes. So our expectation should be that we will continue to increase our dividend and our share buybacks next year and the year after that and the year after that.”

That means the wealthiest people who own part of Wells Fargo, including Sloan, will get the spoils.

Meanwhile, Wells Fargo is laying off employees in Charlotte, North Carolina, and at a call center in Pennsylvania.

Despite being handed out billions by the Republican Party, their priorities are clearly to reward those who are already well-off — who even profited from the scandal — and not in hiring people in North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by 0.72 percent in Pennsylvania and 3.66 percent in North Carolina, and this is how the states and their workers are being treated in response.

The Republican tax bill is another in a long line of tax scams, where the only thing that trickles down on to average Americans is more empty promises and deception.