When Congress was debating the Republican tax bill back in 2017, one of chief arguments made by proponents was that cutting corporate tax rates would lead to a surge in investment. But two years later, there has been no sign of that surge. In fact, investment has fallen this year, and a New York Times analysis of securities filings from the S&P500 found no relationship between the size of a company’s tax cut and the investments they made. If anything, the companies that received the biggest tax cuts increased their capital investment by less, on average, than companies that got smaller cuts. Few companies were more vocal in their advocacy for the tax bill than FedEx . The company’s CEO, Fred Smith, hit the airwaves and op-ed pages promoting the benefits of lower corporate taxes. For FedEx, it paid off — the company cut its tax bill to zero in the 2018 fiscal year. But it invested less than it projected before the bill passed, even as it increased dividends and buybacks. For more on our analysis, including FedEx’s response, see my story with Jim Tankersley and Peter Eavis in The New York Times : …see more