Steve Forbes: Biden is taxing Americans who have the least

Bring in Steve Moore. Committed Unleashed, Prosperity Hotline hosted More money on WABC Radio. Kevin Hassett, former Chair, Council of Economic Advisors, Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution, author of The Drift, Stopping American Slide to Socialism, and Steve Forbes, Forbes Media Chair, Editor in Chief, and author of Inflation, What It Is, Why It’s Bad, and How to Fix It. Steve Forbes, you look very oppressed today. Do you know where your money is gone? I mean, honestly, God, I’m just, she says that. That’s all Biden has to say. The full extent of his tax policy analysis is the rich should pay their fair share and they don’t and they’re paying a fortune and everybody knows that. Well, the fact of the matter is has been said before, inflation is a tax. It’s a hit tax. And that is The Who gets hurt the most. We know who they are, 10s of millions of people living paycheck to paycheck in up to their eyeballs and credit card debt. Interest rates going up. We’ve discussed here before, what’s the real rate of inflation? It’s not 3%, it’s 7%. When you include interest payments, you have to pay that interest every month. 8 high have got as high as 18%. So Joe Biden’s taxing the people have the least yet he’s babbling on about to get into the rich. All this is, is not about revenue. This is about control. It’s not about control growth, it’s about controlling people’s lives. We looked, Kevin, we looked at one of the producers. Total revenues through 22. Fiscal 22 is the last year statistics of income from the IRS anyway. Total revenues up 40% above where they were in 2017 when the Trump tax cuts were put in. 40% increase in revenues. And I just want to add, we’re still running a roughly $2 trillion budget deficit. No matter how much money you tax, no matter how many revenues flow in the Biden deficits are endless. Yeah, it’s absolutely true. And the shameless thing though you were angry listening to those fake talking points of the White House. The amazing thing is that they just keep saying that over and over, year after year, and they don’t really seem to have any commitment to the truth about economic policy. And so I really don’t understand how an honorable person on the economic team could stand there and allow them to say things like that. Because your job is to help run the economy and have smart policies and if you want more progressive taxation, then you could talk about how to do that without harming the economy. But to just lie about it the way they do over and over, it really is infuriating. The fact is, corporate revenue is almost doubled since we cut the corporate rate because of the Laffer curve effect. The share of, as you guys have shown Steve in your newsletter, the share of taxes paid by the top 1% has gone up, not down. And and so this idea that you have to raise tax rates because of this incredible injustice in society is just incorrect. It’s inconsistent with the facts and it’s just a lie that just keeps on going. Steve Moore fixed the tax code, right? I’d love to fix the tax code. You got about 30 seconds. I got, I got this best advisor in the country to do that sitting right here, Steve Forbes, who ran on the flat tax. And you know, look, our enemies couldn’t come up with a tax system that makes less sense than what we have right now. It is a total disgrace to the human race. We could do much better. How about this one, Steve? And and Larry, Kevin, how about an optional flat tax? So you can either have the complicated system that nobody can figure out or you pay what was your rate, 17% after $53,000 of salary for a family of four. And you get a deduction for yourself and your kids, right? Yes. And then you pay 17% and you could, you know, I think you had the postcard return. I bet the best majority of Americans would go for that. It would be like rocket fuel for the economy. Imagine we had a 17% tax rate. Not Biden wants to take up to 50%. We suck capital from the rest of the world. So we can do so much better. And I love, that’s why I want Steve Wars to be the Treasury Secretary. He can be the Treasury Secretary, Kevin Hassett. What about extending the Trump tax cuts? That wouldn’t be a bad place to start because they were contrary to Karine Jean Pierre and Joe Biden. They were successful. They’re bipartisan economists, academics who have looked at the corporate tax cuts and said, wait a second, they were successful. Moreover, everybody got a tax cut and correct me if I’m wrong, Kevin, the tax code became more progressive, not less progressive. Yeah, that’s right. And and real wages went up as well. And so you’re actually helping out the little guy. But the fact is, and this is where the election comes up, the the tax cuts are almost all of them are set to expire and some of them like the expensing are phasing out right now. And so you know Steve Kalise could say, Oh well, we Republicans are the only thing between you and a tax hike that Joe Biden’s planning. And actually they can’t stop it. Yeah, they they they can’t stop it because it’s going to happen unless there’s active legislation. The personal tax the personal side. But, but, but the all you know, all the personal income tax stuff expires and it’s going to expire unless there’s positive action. And so you have to control Congress and control the White House. Recommend me. Recommend me. There’s a little bit unfair. Recommend me an option. Trump comes in. Let’s just say argument. Say Trump wins. What does he do? Well, he makes the tax cuts permanent. I would increase or or reduce the corporate rate even more. And I would think about cutting spending a lot and using it to finance something like a payroll tax cut, because I think the payroll tax is a tax on work and we need more workers out there in order to increase supply and reduce inflation. And so that’s what I would do. I mean, Steve Forbes, the merits of a flat tax notwithstanding, and we favor the principal, the reality is going to have to be a lot of spending restraints and economic growth to fill in the gaps to extend the Trump tax cuts and or do something like a payroll tax cut, which would by and large be a middle class tax cut. Yeah, otherwise we’re going to get a wealth tax. That’s the real agenda. But in terms of a tax cut, yes, start with Trump, but double it and cut rates and realize this is a down payment for a real overhaul of the tax code. That’s what he should say. This is a by way to a real overhaul of the tax code, removing this burden on you. Why are we spending 6 billion hours a year, $300 billion, on this corrupt code that no one understands? Imagine if that went for medical research. Imagine if that went for new products and new services. How much better off we’d be. The opportunity cost is huge. Can I grow the economy at 3 1/2 percent a year, 6 1/2? I mean, no, we can’t. I mean what that’s the average that we had. If you make it pay more to work after tax, if you make it pay more to invest after tax, why won’t you get an incentive effect that would get us out of this 2% growth and into something much greater? I love three. I love the way you’re thinking because what’s the, what’s the CBO? A long time they’re like at 1.7% rate or something. We should be, I am twice that you’re going to get the revenue. I mean, look what when Reagan came in and they did the tax cuts in like 18 months, you grew the economy 18% or something like that. So the effect, by the way, one quick question. Do you know what country in Europe has the fastest economic growth? Ireland. You know what their corporate tax rate is 12 1/2%. You know, defended the Prime Minister in the Oval Office. I did, I did. People were ganging up on the poor guy. No, no, that’s right. If you tax something less, you get more of it. That’s why I raised the point. I mean, I I think if President Trump wins, if he’s reelected, he will look to extend the tax cuts, but he will also look for something that might be more directed at the middle class. That’s why I asked you, Kevin. And your point is you’re going to have to cut spending. I’ll do it. Which is not a bad goal, right? I mean, you got to have a balanced budget approach in there someplace. And the rest could be made-up by growth or not. Yeah, but there’s a lot of room to cut spending, right. So spending right now is about a trillion dollars higher than we thought it would be when you and I were in the White House pre COVID. And that’s a trillion dollars a year that basically is the biggest, biggest fiscal policy opportunity in history. So the Republicans get in there with reconciliation. They’re they’re starting with if they cut spending back to where it was set to go in 2019 with $10 trillion / 10 years to play with $350 billion green energy slash fund there. There’s a third of what you need right there which probably comes to a trillion dollars probably the misnamed inflation reduction act was probably coming to a trillion dollars according to Penn Ward Steve Forrest. I want to come to the actual economy today. Long term interest rates up for it to 463. The 10 year treasury retail sales out today probably stronger than Wall Street expected. The price of gold is soaring. I think it moved through $2400 today. What’s your read on the economy? The economy is growing, however, the gold price. Commodity prices are telling us the dollar is wobbly even though and other currencies are even worse. The feds got problems ahead and you don’t cure it by raising interest rates and depressing the economy. Stabilize the dollar. Make the dollar as good as gold as Greenspan sort of did in the 1990s and you’ll see the dollar stabilize and the economy grow and the Fed can take a long term vacation. Leave the economy alone is. I mean, Joe Biden’s numbers narrowed in the New York Times Siena poll. Now, I know there’s going to be a million polls between now and Election Day, but the GDP tracker from the Atlanta Fed has now moved up to 2.8% for the first quarter, which ended March 31st. They’re still telling it. This would mark the third straight quarter of, I’ll call it, 3% plus growth. The economy surprise you? Well, yeah, it’s better than I thought it would be. But I just want to remind you, do you know what the fastest growing sector of the economy is? I do. I do government, right. So we’re counting. I passed the Ireland test. So I have to know about government spending. Yeah, I mean, we shouldn’t even, Kevin, we shouldn’t even count government spending as part of GDP. So is it true? OK. So government spending and debt presumably stimulating consumer spending. Are we getting it on the so we have demand, are we getting it on the business side or and or is that demand outstripping supply of business equipment, machinery and so forth? No, it’s how lopsided is this economy, it’s very lopsided and you mentioned the right thing. You know, equipment investment has been declining for a few quarters in a row while GDP has been growing because we’re basically borrowing money from the Chinese and mailing it around to people and they’re spending it on stuff. But Steve mentioned the inflation tax. One of the reasons why retail sales was so strong is that they were really blockbuster sales at gas stations. The reason they were blockbuster sales at gas stations. Yeah, so, So the AAA average price of the US went from $3.30 last month to $3.60 this month, and that’s money that people aren’t going to have to spend on other things. And so I think that the economy is more wobbly than these data suggest. You know what, I’m just going to leave it right there. The economy is more wobbly. We need a flat tax fire, the IRS payroll tax too. And it was Ireland has the fastest growth in Europe. Steve Moore, Kevin Hassett and Steve Forbes, thanks all of you. Appreciate you make clear. Tax Day. It’s a dreadful holiday.