Economist Austan Goolsbee Tears Down Trump Adviser's Empty Advocacy Of Tax Cuts For The Rich
Goolsbee: “We Didn't Get Growth” From The Bush Tax Cuts, Proposing An Even Larger Tax Cut “Makes No Sense”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
From the October 20 edition of Fox News' Happening Now:
JENNA LEE (HOST): Hillary Clinton making the argument that she is going to tax the wealthy in part to help pay for some of the missing parts that we have in Social Security and entitlements to help boost those entitlements for 95 percent of the people out there. Is that enough? Will the wealthy solve the issue for 95 percent of Americans?
AUSTAN GOOLSBEE: Well that's just a question about the numbers, and independent budget analysts have said that her numbers do add up, unlike Donald Trump's numbers. I would say that using the high-income taxes that come in from raising those taxes, she's going to do other investments as well. It's not just Social Security, it is about the education system and infrastructure. And I think that's -- the evidence shows that's a better way to get the economy growing than is to go back to what George Bush did.
LEE: Peter what do you think about that? Is taxing the wealthy enough alone to pay in part, as Austan says, for Social Security to make sure that the system doesn't go bankrupt?
PETER NAVARRO: Of course not. What Hillary Clinton promised last night is to try to solve all of the problems she's created over the last 23 years. It's ridiculous. Let's look at the two plans. Donald Trump wants to cut taxes, reduce regulation, unleash the energy sector, and most importantly eliminate the trade deficit. Every one of those things points in the direction of growth, growth that we need. Under Hillary and Obama, we've got 1 percent growth right now and we are not going to get past that because she is going to raise taxes, that's not gonna help growth. She's going to increase regulation, that's not gonna help growth. She told the people of Ohio, and the rest of this country, the coal miners she's gonna put them out of business and electricity prices will go up.
LEE: Chris Wallace interrupted Donald Trump and said the economic growth in and of itself is not going to solve the issue with entitlements. Is it? Is your argument that economic growth is enough to solve the problem?
NAVARRO: So here's the thing, the Austan-Clinton-Beltway mentality is the only way we can survive in America, is if you're a Democrat to raise taxes or if you're a Republican is to cut expenses. The third way, the smart way, the Trump way is to get back to 3.5 percent growth rate over time. We did that for five and a half decades, from 1947 to 2001. That generates tremendous amounts of income and tremendous amounts tax revenues, 25 million jobs and we can do that again. See this is what's so defeatism about Austin Goolsebee and Clinton. They'll say, “But we can't do it.”
LEE: Let me give Austan a chance to respond to that. Peter's argument in and of itself, Austan, is that you get more people working, you get more people paying into the system. It's not just about taxing the wealthy, economic growth will help us solve this problem; do you think it will?
GOOLSBEE: No -- I agree that is what Peter said, and do they not remember that the same people said that when George Bush proposed exactly those policies and did that and we didn't get growth? We cut corporate taxes and high-income peoples' taxes as much as they've ever been cut and we didn't get growth. And now they're proposing to do three times what George Bush did, it makes no sense.
Previously:
Economist Austan Goolsbee Skewers Trump Adviser Over “Magic Beanstalk” Theory Of Economics
PBS NewsHour Economic Correspondent Schools Trump's Economics Adviser On How The Economy Works
Economist Austan Goolsbee Calls Out Fox Business Host For Pushing Right-Wing Spin On Tax Cuts