Joining us now to talk about is Kevin Hassett,
former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers,
and Kevin Brady, former chair of the House Ways and
Means Committee.
Not only do I think he's right,
gentlemen, I want to preserve them and extend them.
Now, Kevin Brady, I'm going to you.
The original tax cut was estimated at about
1 1/2 trillion dollars
cost in terms of revenues.
That was back in 2017,
Mr. Chairman. You can correct me,
but that was the number,
as I recall, 1.5 trillion.
Now, here's what's bothering me.
I want to get you,
and then I want to get Kevin Acidant.
The Joint Tax Committee is now estimating that if you
extend these tax cuts
for another 10 years, it's going to cost
4 1/2 trillion dollars. And yet in the meantime,
the revenues from the tax cuts have exploded and they've
affected Trump is right.
Every single category, upper end,
middle, lower end, all got it,
standard deduction from 1000 to 2000,
child tax credit, 1000 to 2000,
et cetera, et cetera. Why are they estimating such a
gigantic revenue loss?
Or is it the usual tricks from the
liberals on the Joint Tax Committee that they don't like
Trump and they don't like tax cuts and they hate
supply siders?
Thank Kevin.
Well, well, first, anytime I,
I have you 2 together,
I need to say thank you for the work.
You did crucial work in developing the tax policies,
the concepts that led to the Trump tax cuts.
And at the end of the day,
the greatest winners from those Trump tax cuts were average
workers who saw
in three years the largest increase
of inflation adjusted earnings since America began recording those numbers.
So the corporate rate cut and obviously the way we
modernized all of this was an economic boon for workers.
So one thing, you know this both Larry and Kevin,
is that we didn't just do 1 1/2 trillion dollars
of cuts.
We did $5.5 trillion of cuts.
We, we paid for a good part of that $4
trillion
through thoughtful reforms that fueled growth,
reforms that fueled lower taxes.
At the end of the day,
we only had a net expense of
1.5 trillion. And much of that,
by the way, has been recouped by stronger earnings,
as you know, corporate rate.
Yeah, the corporate taxes today soared at
21%, are generating more than was projected at
35%. So the growth has really driven not just workers
gains,
but revenue to the government as well.
Kevin Asset, we don't have a lot of time but
I had to read you this stuff from today's
Committee to Unleash Prosperity Hotline.
The richest 1% paid much more.
I mean Biden always says the rich don't pay their
fair share.
In 2016 pre tax cut the top 1%
paid
37% of the taxes, OK.
By 2021, the top 1%
paid 46 percent.
45.8. OK, so they actually,
the rich are paying more of their fair share.
They only make about 20%
of the income. So the point is
why, how do we we get,
we have to drive this home.
These revenue loss estimates from the
committee's are wrong. They're just wrong.
They're always wrong. Kevin Asset
and, and there's an especially frustrating thing here that I
know that Chairman Brady and you,
it's going to turn your heads inside out when I
say this,
but you remember they didn't let us have dynamic scoring,
but then we got this incredible boom in business profits
and in small business profits.
And so revenues went up.
Revenues have about doubled since before when the,
when the corporate rate was
35%, but now the revenues are really high.
And when they say, well,
what happens, you know, if you
have to, to cut rates relative to that really,
really big pool of revenue?
So then they say, oh,
it costs a lot more,
right? Like, so think about it.
We had this huge Laffer curve effect.
We doubled revenues. And so now when
they take away the tax cuts,
they say it costs twice as much because they're they're
like allowing,
like they, it's in the data that it doubled,
but they're not in any way adjusting their expectations about
dynamic effects of policy.
And it just shows that these these people have bags
over their heads.
It's poor. I mean, it just makes no sense.
You're so right. I mean,
Kevin Brady, we're going to have to fight this.
You know, Biden is going to look,
Biden's going to leave Trump.
Trump wins. If he wins,
Biden will leave him a $2 trillion budget deficit.
OK, that's most unfortunate. And it's 2 trillion as far
as the eye can see.
But the point is that should not,
that's a separate that should not stop the tax cut,
the stock, The tax cuts will yield more prosperity,
more growth and more revenues.
I'm going to give you the last word,
Chairman Brady. We actually, I want you back as chairman
of the Ways and Means Committee.
Well, I'll tell you what we've got in time.
We've got a great chairman and the House Republicans really
leading the way,
I think preparing for tax reform.
So locking in those lower rates,
especially for businesses and families,
are so important to growth and small businesses as well.
Look, we know there'll be a cost to it and
the deficit is higher.
That will be a factor in this.
But as we showed in 2017,
you can lock in lower rates.
You can make the reforms that can be fiscally responsible
and grow prosperity in workers rages at the same time.
That's it. I'm sorry we're out of time.
We did the Ponda hawk stuff but.