Virtually the whole world is beating up on the Trump administration for daring to predict that low marginal tax rates, regulatory rollbacks and the repeal of Obamacare will generate 3 to 3.5 percent economic growth in the years ahead.
On the very day President Donald Trump's incentive-based tax and regulatory policies are put in place, former President Barack Obama's war on business will have officially come to an end. No longer will American companies be punished by uncompetitive rates of taxation and unnecessary rules and regulations.
In all the media back and forth over President Donald Trump's inaugural speech, most have missed a central point: His address was infused with a wonderful sense of optimism.
Perhaps the reason for President Obama’s flat and energy-less speech Thursday night -- TV cameras panning the convention floor actually showed delegates falling asleep -- was that he already knew Friday’s jobs numbers were going to be a disaster. The August unemployment report completely punctured his argument that if you just give him four more years, his policies will solve the economy.
In front of a spirited crowd that packed the Tampa Times Forum, Chris Christie gave a solid speech which echoed Mitt Romney's programs consisting of substantial budget cuts, tax cuts, and entitlement reform.
“The purpose of economic policy is growth, jobs, and prosperity,” supply-side founder Art Laffer told me today. As such, Laffer has endorsed Newt Gingrich and the Gingrich 15 percent flat-tax plan, which includes the 12.5 percent corporate-tax reform. “It’s nothing against the other candidates,” Laffer said. “But Newt’s plan is right, and therefore endorsing him is the right thing to do.”
When you think of Republican congressman Paul Ryan, terms like earnest, serious, and important come to mind. So does the term old-fashioned. Ryan comes from an old-fashioned place, the blue-collar town of Janesville, Wisconsin. He cherishes the old-fashioned values of a faithful family man. He even looks old-fashioned, with his white shirts and striped ties. And he uses old-fashioned argument skills, persuasively weaving big-picture themes with the numbers that back them up.
Following the GOP debate that nearly the whole world watched on Saturday night, the president on Sunday made it very clear that he will not back off his class-warfare vision in the coming year. Obama told Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes that middle-class inequality will be his big theme, and that somehow successful earners, investors, and small-business owners are to blame.
Despite some modest improvements in the jobs picture with the release of today’s Labor Department report, I would guard against any irrational overexuberance that problems with employment or the economy are being solved.
While investors wait to see if the Europeans will agree to a major boost in their rescue fund to backstop sovereign debt and the banks who own it, here at home the economic news has turned slightly more positive.
Herman Cain is the only GOP presidential candidate who wants to kill the tax code. That’s right. Put a knife in it. Junk the entire system. And people are cheering as he rises in the polls in his quest for the nomination.
It could almost make your head spin. With an economy on the front end of another recession, President Obama’s tax attack on the folks who are most likely to succeed, invest, start new businesses, and create jobs is nothing short of staggering. Only liberal-left class-warfare ideology can explain this.
New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg, in a radio interview on Friday, warned that high unemployment could lead to widespread rioting. That’s right. He actually said that. At a time when European cities have suffered massively from hooliganism, and at a time when U.S. towns like Philadelphia and Kansas City have suffered huge human and commercial tolls from so-called flash riots.
Is the economy standing on the front end of a new recession? As IMF executive director Christine Lagarde and World Bank president Robert Zoellick warn that the global economy is entering a new economic danger zone, there’s plenty to be worried about right here in the U.S.A.
Watching the two GOP frontrunners in last night’s debate -- Mitt Romney and Rick Perry -- a couple of policy points jumped out at me.
Who would have really expected a 300-point stock market plunge on the day after President Obama’s so-called jobs speech?
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney joined me in Las Vegas yesterday to discuss his new jobs and economic plan. He also shared some thoughts on his new Republican rival, Texas Governor Rick Perry.
No sooner had President Obama shocked the political world with a gloomy economic forecast -- projecting 9.1 percent unemployment for this year and a reelection-killing 9 percent for 2012 -- than the dismal August jobs report arrived showing no gain in nonfarm payrolls. That’s right, no gain at all. Private jobs increased a scant 17,000, while hours worked and wages actually declined. Obama’s economic policies have failed.
Gov. Rick Perry scorched the political pot on Tuesday with a red-hot rhetorical attack on Fed-head Ben Bernanke. When asked about the Fed reopening the monetary spigots, Perry said, “If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we -- we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas.”
Damn the torpedoes! Up periscope! Full speed ahead! Ben Bernanke and the Fed to the rescue!
