Outlining what aides called his broad economic vision, Donald Trump claimed Thursday that the economy can create 25 million jobs over the next decade with the help of lower taxes and less government regulation.
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Donald Trump on Thursday put forward his most detailed economic blueprint, saying he would deliver significantly stronger economic growth to offset the costs of large tax cuts and more federal spending by Washington.
It said his plan would also lower the corporate tax rate to 15 percent from the current 35 percent and would eliminate the carried interest loophole for Wall Street and the estate tax, which affects only the wealthiest, but which Trump’s campaign said “falls especially hard on small businesses and farmers”.
When Trump’s primary rival Jeb Bush pledged four percent growth, many economists described it as ambitious and even unrealistic for a sustained period. Some perspective: according to Bloomberg, the most jobs ever created over such a period was 24.4 million added in the 10 years ended in March 2001. “It’s going to be very hard to achieve 3.5 percent growth on a sustained basis” for any presidential candidate, Gennadiy Goldberg, a strategist at TD Securities in NY told Bloomberg, pointing to challenges both at home and overseas.
Trump has proposed cutting the tax rates for individuals across the board, taking the top tax rate to 33 percent – down from 39.6 percent now.
Trump’s plan will “embrace the truth that people flourish under a minimum government burden”, he said.
Democrats have criticized Mr. Trump for not releasing his tax returns.
“And we can’t know the answer to that question without these tax returns”. The top individual tax rate is 39.6 percent – meaning that the original proposal would have amounted to a tax cut for many.
He characterized the current economy as one of malaise: “We’re looking at an economy of no growth”, he said.
Further proposals ranged from cutting regulations on environmental and consumer protection, to completely scrapping rules on power-plant emissions and food-safety standards. That was the promise that George W. Bush used to justify his large tax cuts, but the economic growth never appeared and massive deficits ensued. “So I’d say the window is closed on that but I wish he had done so last March or April”. Trump said that would reduce spending by $1 trillion over a decade.
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As is typical when Trump speaks about the economy, he lambasted the country’s trade agreements, promising a renegotiation of Nafta and promising to keep the country out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. However, he made the speech just two days after the Census revealed that previous year household income the usa bounced back to the tune of 5.2 per cent, an encouraging number seen by some as a vindication of the economic policies of President Barack Obama.
