Fredipedia: The Definitive Fred Thompson Reference
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Posted on 06/07/2007 4:45:15 PM PDT by NoobRep
June 7, 2007 Has Fred Thompson Read the NAM's Cost Study?
Sure looks like it. Here he is on CNBC's Kudlow & Company yesterday:
Mr. THOMPSON: We have, you know—if you include state taxes—the highest corporate tax rate in the world. That makes us less competitive. All those things have to be looked at. And all those—especially as far as the corporate tax rate is concerned, need to be clearly reduced, I think.
KUDLOW: Yeah, it's an interesting point. There's been a bunch of news articles. Europe, believe it or not--I mean, old Europe, believe it or not is engaging in low tax-cutting competition. And...
Mr. THOMPSON: It's ironic that when western Europe starts going lower than you, you need to be concerned about it.
Well, if the Senator hasn't read the NAM's 2006 cost study* -- "The Escalating Cost Crisis" -- he must be channeling it. The study (.pdf file here) showed that manufacturers in the United States suffer a 31.7 percent structural cost disadvantage compared to our major global competitors, and a big reason is high corporate taxes.
The corporate tax burden was both the heaviest burden in absolute terms and the largest contributor to the deterioration in the U.S. structural manufacturing cost gap, adding 2.0 percentage points to the U.S. cost disadvantage. This is largely due to the fact that U.S. statutory rates were unchanged, even as several other trading partners continued to lower their rates, but also is due to other aspects of tax policy (such as failure to renew the Research and Experimentation tax credit).
If we're not going to get presidential debates devoted solely to manufacturing and the economy, guess the best alternative is one-on-one candidate interviews on Kudlow's show. (He had Romney on in February.) Kudlow sure hits the right topics.
*Full attribution: Deloitte & Touche LLP cosponsored the report by the NAM, Manufacturing Institute and the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=361868148
This is interesting because all the public hears about, from Dimocraps and RINOs, is “corporate welfare”.
Profit has now become a dirty word in our culture yet nobody wants to work for a company that is losing money or invest in one. We’re swimming upside down and can’t figure out why we’re drowning.
Here’s the interview text posted on Kudlow’s site:
Thursday, June 07, 2007
The Thompson Interview
Some compelling, pro-growth ideas from likely GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson on last night’s Kudlow & Company. Here’s a sampling...
KUDLOW: Let’s pick up on a couple of those ideas. First of all, tax reform. Specifically, sir, what kind of tax reform were you thinking about?
Mr. THOMPSON: Well, I don’t want to get into a lot of details in terms of a plan before I even announce my candidacy—but simpler without question. You know, I’m told now that most people can’t figure out how to compute their capital gains and dividend liability. Things could just get more and more complicated.
We got the ridiculous thing with the death tax where on December 31st, you know, 2010, if you die, you have zero liability. But, if you die 24 hours later, you know, you could lose over half your estate to the federal government. That’s just one indicator of the ridiculousness that’s in the tax code now. It makes us less competitive in a lot of different ways. We have, you know—if you include state taxes—the highest corporate tax rate in the world. That makes us less competitive. All those things have to be looked at. And all those—especially as far as the corporate tax rate is concerned, need to be clearly reduced, I think.
KUDLOW: Yeah, it’s an interesting point. There’s been a bunch of news articles. Europe, believe it or not—I mean, old Europe, believe it or not is engaging in low tax-cutting competition. And...
Mr. THOMPSON: It’s ironic that when western Europe starts going lower than you, you need to be concerned about it.
KUDLOW: So one of your moves as president would be to go right after that...
Mr. THOMPSON: Yeah.
KUDLOW: ...and then get us back into equilibrium? Is that right?
Mr. THOMPSON: Yeah. There’s no question about it. There’s no excuse for doing otherwise, other than some of this class warfare demagoguery we see coming from the Democrats. I think that you see it mostly when it comes to the individual income tax rate debate. But you see it with regard to the corporate situation also.
KUDLOW: How about just a quickie before we take our first break, sir. Extending the Bush tax cuts, all the Democrats, all the Democrats—Hillary, Obama, Edwards—want to rollback. They want to repeal the Bush tax cuts, which in effect would be a very large tax rate increase. Your quick thought on that.
Mr. THOMPSON: Well, it’s a no-brainer to resist them with all of our power. It’s the driving force of this good economy that we’re seeing. We’re raising more revenue with these lower tax rates than we’ve ever raised before for the federal government. It’s clearly, for them, not about raising money for the legitimate functions of government, it’s about redistribution of income and collecting votes. You set the rate where you think you can get the votes, and anything above that, you want to tax. So instead of trying to make the pie bigger, they’re trying to concentrate totally on redividing the pie. And that just means less economic growth and a worse economy.
KUDLOW: Do we have an income and wage inequality in this country necessary for government action? I mean, that again is part of the Democratic mantra, to raise taxes on the rich.
Mr. THOMPSON: Well, I don’t know who should be set up as responsible for determining how much a person ought to make. But I think a country where 5 percent of the people pay over half the income taxes in this country, that as far as the tax structure is concerned, that’s not any equality that I would name.
I’m for eliminating ALL income taxes, state & federal and replacing the federal income tax with a national sales tax. Heck almost half the population who file income taxes even pay a federal income tax. And as far as state income taxes go, if TX & FL can operate successfully without a state income tax I don’t see why every other state can’t also!
Fredipedia: The Definitive Fred Thompson Reference
Please FReepmail jellybean if you want on/off this list. WARNING: This ping list is EXTREMELY active.
bump
But, but...Fred Thompson is nothing like Ronald Reagan../s
to read.......
And .. you have to factor in the higher corporate taxes as part of the reason corporations want cheaper labor .. so if the corporate tax rates are reduced, wages can go higher and therefore the need for cheap labor disappears.
Hmmmm ..?? Interesting.
Let that one slip, Fred?
There's no doubt he WILL announce at this point, IMHO.
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