The Trump Campaign Shows Its Policy Chops

by Betsy McCaughey | May 4, 2016 12:01 am

The rap on Donald Trump is he’s all bluster. The New York Times says he’s offering “incoherent mishmash.” GOP rival Ted Cruz claims Trump has “no idea” how to fix the economy. Don’t’ believe it. The Trump campaign is putting forward proposals to fix problems facing the nation, from the long waits for medical care at the VA to the impending collapse of Obamacare. Check out Trump’s economic plan, for starters. Unlike Hillary Clinton’s radical anti-business agenda, Trump’s plan would actually help unemployed Americans get back to work.

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Trump slashes the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, down from the current 40 percent, the highest rate in the industrialized world. Not all American companies pay that staggering rate, but even after deductions and accounting maneuvers, companies in the U.S. end up clobbered with taxes nearly twice the global average (24 percent). In Ireland, a magnet for tax-weary companies, the rate is only 12.5 percent and their economy is growing about three times as fast as ours. Conversely, Japan and Argentina are stuck in the doldrums along with the U.S., partly because of their high corporate tax rates.

Trump also proposes a one-time 10 percent repatriation tax on profits U.S. companies made overseas and kept there to avoid the 40 percent rate. That bargain could lure back as much as $2.5 trillion in capital urgently needed here.

To promote investing in plants and equipment, Trump would allow companies to write off the purchases the year they’re made, rather than over several years, as current law requires.

Economist Larry Kudlow predicts that if Trump’s corporate tax plan becomes law, you’ll see “a tremendous movement of capital and labor back to the United States.”

Trump’s 15 percent business rate would also apply to small businesses that usually get taxed at individual income tax rates. That would give a break to mom and pop operations, startups and other small businesses, which are the source of most jobs.

Compare Trump’s blueprint with Clinton’s nightmare scenario: Higher taxes, more tax complexity and an avalanche of new regulations. Overregulation has depressed growth for the last 15 years. The Obama administration suffocated business with 81,000 pages of new regulations in 2015. Clinton is pushing for even more — with controls on hiring, pay, bonuses and overtime to promote “fairer growth.” Translation: enforcing gender and racial preferences, plus meddling in how much you get paid.

Remember Obama’s statement, “You didn’t build that”? Well, Clinton assumes that “you don’t own that.” Government will run your business. Clinton wants companies to stop maximizing quarterly earnings for shareholders — what she derides as “quarterly capitalism.” She wants “farsighted investments.” Companies that can get out of the U.S. will rush for the exits.

She’s even promising an end to “the boom and bust cycles on Wall Street.” As plausible as ending rainy days.

Trump’s “make America rich” plan targets impoverished cities like Baltimore with incentives for companies to move there. For African-Americans, whose unemployment rate is twice as high as the nation’s overall, Trump’s has a four-letter remedy. JOBS.

For young blacks with no job experience, he’s got plans. One is borrowed from the left-leaning Century Foundation. Every summer, the State Department brings about 100,000 young foreigners into the U.S. to work in restaurants, camps and seaside resorts under J-1 visas. Trump says convert the program into a jobs bank for our own inner-city youth.

Meanwhile, Clinton is stoking racial hatred, telling black voters they’re victims of “systemic racism” and meeting with Al Sharpton. Clinton says public schools should stop disciplining and suspending black teenagers who misbehave. But self-discipline is precisely what’s needed to succeed at school and on a job. While Clinton panders, Trump offers specifics to get these young people on the job ladder.

Clinton’s always been tagged the policy wonk, but she’s just a cynical politician. Trump, who’s rolling out serious policies to get Americans working, is the real deal.

Betsy McCaughey is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and author of “Government by Choice: Inventing the United States Constitution.”

Also see,

Obama’s Killer Economy