Veteran financial guru Larry Kudlow, who served as the Donald Trump campaign's senior economic adviser, tells Newsmax TV that the president-elect's tax-overhaul blueprint will benefit every economic class in America.
“When you have across-the-board tax cuts, across-the-board reductions in marginal tax rate, everyone's a winner,” Kudlow told Steve Malzberg on "America Talks Live."
“There are no losers in this. None. Zero,” said Kudlow, a Newsmax Finance Insider and CNBC senior contributor.
See Steve Malzberg on Newsmax TV: Tune in beginning at 12 PM EDT to see "America Talks Live" — on FiOS 115/116, YouTube Livestream, Newsmax TV App from any smartphone, NewsmaxTV.com, Roku, Amazon Fire — More Systems Here
To be sure, Trump’s published tax plan on his website vows he would “reduce taxes across-the-board.”
“We're going to broaden the base while we lower the rates and actually, if anybody looks at Trump's plan, the middle-income people in a growth sense, do very well, almost as well as the upper bracket people," Kudlow said.
"The upper bracket people always do better because it's a progressive tax code. We're the most progressive code in the world. So sure they're going to get a cut, but mostly it's the lower tax rate, you keep more of what you earn and it is across the board for everybody," he said.
"Democrats forgot to say that during the election, that's why they got trounced," said Kudlow, expressing frustration at criticism of Trump's tax plan.
“I notice these lefty press people are talking about, ‘Oh my god, rich people will benefit!'" said Kudlow, who under President Ronald Reagan was the associate director for economics and planning, Office of Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President, where he was engaged in the development of the administration’s economic and budget policy.
“First of all, why are we punishing success in America? Would you explain that to me? I thought America was the home of the brave, the land of the free and if you do well and you're an entrepreneur we love you? We love you, OK, we don't want you moving” out of America for lower taxes in an overseas nation, Kudlow said.
“Second of all, upper-end people are going to get a lower tax rate, but they're also going to lose a lot of their deductions. There are going to be strict limitations on these loopholes from K Street tax lawyers, and that's good. What you're saying here is we're going to cut the rates and simplify the code," said Kudlow — host of "The Larry Kudlow Show" and author of "JFK and the Reagan Revolution: A Secret History of American Prosperity," written with Brian Domitrovic and published by Portfolio.
In a wide ranging interview, Kudlow:
- Said he knew Trump would turn over daily control of his business to his children. “It's the sensible thing to do. I mean I've never doubted that he would do that. It was just (critics) attacking him and nitpicking him and ankle-biting him for this stuff. The guy built a fabulous business and his family can run that business and they'll figure out the legal ways to separate him so he can run the country, grow the country, create jobs, give his supporters security, and trash and destroy ISIS.”
- Applauded Trump’s business prowess to cut a deal to United Technologies Corp. to keep close to 1,000 jobs at its Carrier Corp. air conditioner plant in Indianapolis, roughly halving the number of U.S. jobs it planned to move to Mexico. The deal, announced by Carrier on Twitter late on Tuesday, is a victory for Trump, who campaigned hard on keeping jobs in the United States and specifically criticized Carrier for shipping jobs overseas, messages which appealed to blue-collar workers in the Midwest. “I think the key point here is that Trump's tax reforms, particularly his business tax reforms, are going to make it so hospitable to stay in the United States that we won't have to worry about companies leaving or taking their cash oversees.”
- Touted Trump’s plan to slash the corporate tax rate. “The key point here is to provide business incentives to stay home, that's the key point, and grow the American economy with more workers and better wages. That's just got to be the bottom line," he said. "We won't need inversions, we won't have to go to Ireland because we'll have a 15 percent tax rate (reduced from the current 35 percent). It doesn't get any better than that,” he said. "If you cut the tax, give businesses more incentives and more profits, you have full immediate cash expensing for investment, repatriate the money overseas back. Why would they leave? If we create new incentives to stay, they will stay.”
- Explained Trump is "also cutting personal tax rates to make the workers have better after-tax wages."
- Said Trump's selections of former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. partner Steven Mnuchin as the next U.S. Treasury secretary and billionaire investor Wilbur Ross as Commerce secretary will have to transform government and benefit the economy. "Both are very good men. I know Wilbur and Hilary Ross very, very well, love them to death, terrific people, great businessman. I'm sure he'll create a new culture at the Commerce Department, maybe he'll get around to a scalpel and take out about half, maybe 100 percent of it," Kudlow said. Kudlow also complimented Mnuchin. "He's first rate, first rate, absolutely, supply sider, pro-growth, and he'll do a good job at the Treasury Department."
- Pointed out that the OPEC output cut deal doesn't matter. “I don't care what they (OPEC) do. Our oil and fracking or natural gas makes the United States the most important oil producer and if the price goes up, you'll see all that fracking come back online, supply will increase, the prices will be relatively stable,” he said. I don't care about OPEC," he said.“I say the swing producer is the United States. OPEC is dead,” said Kudlow
(Newsmax wire services contributed to this report).
Larry Kudlow is a senior contributor at CNBC. His new book is “JFK and the Reagan Revolution: A Secret History of American Prosperity,” written with Brian Domitrovic.
To find out more about Larry Kudlow and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com
© 2024 Newsmax Finance. All rights reserved.