Wednesday on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria,” while discussing President Donald Trump’s tax reform proposal Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) argued that we wanted to see “Reagan-era economic growth,” that would require “Reagan-style tax cuts.”
Remarks as follows:
Some of the early details are encouraging. I think the principles that should govern tax reform are growth, fairness, and simplicity. Number one should be growth. The focus should be jobs and economic growth. And I think there are a lot of elements that we’re hearing that are encouraging in that regard.
I would like to see those rates lower. I would like to see one simple flat tax. That’s what I campaigned on as you know in the presidential race, it’s what I’ve encouraged my colleagues to do. If we don’t have the votes to go there, going from seven rates to three is a positive step. Going from three to two is even better, going from two to one is even better. I think simplicity and being low is important. I also think for individuals being able to fill out your taxes on a postcard has a powerful, powerful impact of simplicity. We spend 9 billion hours a year in tax compliance. That’s an easy save. But I’ll tell you one of the first questions we’re going to debate in Congress and with the administration is how big of a tax cut are we talking about? This matters. I think it needs to be a tax cut, an unapologetic tax cut. A serious tax-cut. And the simplistic reason, if you want to see Reagan-era economic growth, if you want to see booming GDP, small business growing, you’ve got to have Reagan style tax cuts, real tax cuts. Not just deficit-neutral adjusting, emptying one bucket and filling another. You’ve got to have a real tax cut on small businesses, on job producers, on working families. That’s how we unleash the economy.
If it’s deficit neutral, it’s not a tax cut. And one of the things to remember – the way Washington scores tax cuts, they consistently underestimate the economic growth impact of tax cuts. One of the reasons I’m such a passionate advocate for a big serious tax cut is because I’m very worried about the deficit and debt. And the only way we’re going to turn it around is economic growth. There’s no way Congress is going to find the backbone to cut enough to get out of the debt. It’s just not going to happen. It’s not going to happen with Democrats, and it’s not even going to happen with most Republicans. The only way we get out of this hole we’ve dug ourselves is getting out of the anemic, Obama-era one and two percent growth and getting back to robust three, four, five percent GDP growth. That generates so much revenue that that is how you end up paying down the deficit and debt.
Since WWII our economy has grown on average 3.3 percent a year. From 2008 to today, it’s grown 1.2 percent a year. This is dismal – it’s miserable. And I’ll tell you, a lot of people in Washington are accepting this as the new normal. Now we grow one to two percent a year. Well you know, prior to Obama, the last four year period where you had economic growth less than one percent, was 1978-1982 – it was Jimmy Carter. Coming right out of the same failed economic policies. And what did Reagan do? In ‘81 he came in with a major tax cut, major regulatory reform – the economy took off.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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