Trump and the Art of Growth He sets a clear contrast with Clinton on taxes, regulation and energy.

Posted By on September 16th, 2016

http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-and-the-art-of-growth-1473982247

Donald Trump’s economic program has gone through several revisions and now deserves a citation at Trump University for “most improved.” The candidate’s New York Economic Club speech on Thursday, which included new tax reform details, was an encouraging if sometimes contradictory performance.

Mr. Trump’s rhetoric is often grim, but in New York maybe for the first time he talked more about solutions than problems. He even mentioned unrealized human potential. “We reject the pessimism that says our standard of living can no longer rise, and that all that’s left to do is divide up and redistribute our shrinking resources,” he said.

Mr. Trump identified economic growth as the most important domestic priority and set a “national goal” of reaching 4% from the 1%-2% trend of the Obama economy. That’s ambitious, but 2% isn’t some immutable ceiling and better policy could lift GDP. Jeb Bush also took a 4% pledge, and such commitments are important in setting a direction for governance.

 Growth can seem abstract, but it’s a general proxy for the standard of living. At 1%, the real economy will take about 70 years to double in size. At 2%, it’s about 35 years and at 3% only about 25. The question is whether Americans will benefit from the gains of this doubling of national wealth in their prime working years, or never. No major problem—from flat incomes to budget deficits to poverty—can be solved without faster growth.

Mr. Trump’s plan to overhaul a tax code that hasn’t been updated in 30 years would help. He’d collapse the individual income tax brackets from seven to three, with rates of 12%, 25% and 33%. To help make the fiscal math work, he introduced a new cap on deductions of $100,000 for single filers and $200,000 for couples. A cap is shrewd politics because it means not going to war with every pressure group in Washington that lives off loopholes. CONTINUE AT SITE

 

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