“My plan will embrace the truth that people flourish under a minimum government burden and will tap into the incredible, unrealized potential of our workers and their dreams”, Trump said in a speech to the Economic Club of NY. “Now cars are made in Mexico and you can’t drink the water in Flint”.
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“Everything broken today can be fixed and every failure can be turned into a great success”, Trump said, referring to the problems he sees in the US. In 2015, the economy added 2.7 million, and the year before that, 3 million.
He said that “excessive regulation” costs Americans almost $2 trillion a year.
“I will eliminate all needless and job-killing regulations now on the books”, Trump vowed.
Maybe Trump’s plan isn’t completely ideal, but it’s a solid start and, as Trump said in his speech, it’s better than Hillary Clinton’s offer of “more taxing, regulating, more spending and more wealth redistribution – a future of slow growth, declining incomes and dwindling prosperity”.
How does it differ from Clinton’s plan? During her grueling effort to fight off a challenge from Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton steadfastly refused to release transcripts of paid speeches she gave to Wall Street banks. “She wants to shut down the miners, just like she wants to shut down the steel mills”. Trump said, getting laughs from the audience. Pence said Clinton is urging Americans to accept a regular, long-term economic “malaise”.
Trump gave specific goals – and policy details – urging the U.S. “to start thinking big once again”. He said President Obama had left the nation in a state of disrepair and dysfunction, and cited water poisoning in MI as an example. It didn’t happen by the time she left the Senate in 2009.
Clinton’s campaign kept up its criticism of Trump’s proposals.
Still, the Associated Press notes that the US economy is already creating 2.5 million jobs a year – which is the same pace Trump has promise. Trump denounced it as the weakest recovery of the last 70 years. Hopefully, this focus on the economy will last more than 24 hours and he will develop a consistent, repetitive, pro-growth message for the last two months of the campaign.
Few businesses now pay the full 35 percent rate, taking advantage of many deductions in the existing tax code.
But perhaps most shockingly, Trump proposed slashing the power of the Food and Drug Administration.
Saying the USA should strive to growth at 4 percent, Trump also said to the gathering: “My great economists don’t want me to say this, but I think we can do better than that”.
Trump also proposes simplifying the tax code for individuals, reducing the seven tax brackets to three: 12 percent, 25 percent and 33 percent of income after deductions. “It’s a silent nation of jobless Americans”. Ellis said the trade reform and renegotiation are especially needed.
He criticized trade deals such as NAFTA, and promised to keep America out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. After one increase in December, it is still ultra-low at between 0.25 percent and 0.5 percent, a rate that some economists worry could spark a stock-market bubble or inflation. He liked the other parts of the speech about government policies.
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“My view is let’s lower the tax rate, get rid of a lot of the gimmicks, and have more or less collected in taxes”, Baker said.
