[Trump, Pay Attention]: Bush's Tax Plan Goes Long Way Toward Restoring 4% Growth

Investor's Business Daily ^ | 09/09/2015 | LAWRENCE KUDLOW AND STEPHEN MOORE

[central_va]

This will be the last thing I say to you.

Please God make is so....

[samtheman]

When I expressed these things to Trump and his re-election organization, they told me they will consider these things.

You know Trump?

[Pelham]

If you read Martin Anderson (Revolution) who actually was one of Reagan's four chief economic advisers (and his longest serving aide) you'll learn how little influence Laffer had on the Reagan economic program.

People think that is what happened because Wanniski and Gilder and Laffer et al filled the pages of the Wall Street Journal with articles that promoted that idea. And it gets endlessly repeated still by the likes of Limbaugh and Hannity.

If you want to look for someone to credit you should try Paul Craig Roberts. Roberts drafted the Kemp-Roth bill which became the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. ERTA is the Reagan tax program. Roberts worked for Reagan at Treasury, and Reagan himself credited Roberts for having played the major role in crafting the bill.

Roberts was an original supply-sider, helping to originate the policy as early as 1975 when he worked for Jack Kemp. You just don't know about his contribution to economics and Reagan's program because he's not endlessly promoting himself like Laffer. He's mostly known now for his crackpot foreign policy views, but his contributions to making supply side mainstream are very real. The French awarded him their Legion of Honor recognizing him as "the artisan of a renewal in economic science and policy after half a century of state interventionism". His Harvard University Press book The Supply-Side Revolution is something you ought to read.

[central_va]

if Jim0216 is in the Trump camp they have a snake in the grass.

[LS]

I read Roberts book. He was influential. Anderson is no less self-serving than Laffer. And Hannity and Rush happen to be right on this.

[Pelham]

“Anderson is no less self-serving than Laffer.”

Martin Anderson’s ‘Revolution’ is his story of being present at the creation of the Reagan administration. He was in the room when the Reagan economic program was being crafted. As an economist and Reagan’s chief domestic policy advisor he was part of it.

When Anderson tells people he worked for Reagan and played a major role in crafting Reaganomics he’s telling the truth. When Laffer tells people that he was Reagan’s chief economist he’s not. He was not on the Reagan payroll in any capacity. In my experience people who have a casual relationship with the truth aren’t reliable.

I’ve read Niskanen’s ‘Reaganomics’, Bartlett’s ‘Reaganomics’, Gilder’s ‘Wealth and Poverty’, Bartley’s ‘The Seven Fat Years’, Wanniski’s ‘The Way the World Works’, Lindsey’s ‘The Growth Experiment’ and of course the Roberts and the Anderson books. I think I’ll trust my judgement over Rush and Hannity.

[PapaNew]

Karl Marx was a big fan of Free Trade

What a stupid statement. That's like saying Hitler loved the Jews. Marxism is the absolute antitheses to free market economics and trade.

I notice there's little-to-no rationale behind what you say nor do you site authoritative sources.

I don't think Trump would endorse this level of chowderhead stupidity.

[LS]

I’ve read all those too. And interviewed Craig Shirley, Michael Reagan, Tony Dolan, and a dozen other RR insiders.

[central_va]

But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade.

-- Karl Marx 1848

[Jim W N]

Not personally but we have been communicating. He’s open and is smart enough to understand where he might need to make some adjustments. I believe Trump really wants to do the best for America and as he says, make America great again.

[central_va]

God I hope he doesn’t start listening to milquetoast swilling fools....

[Marie]

Not a professionally edited video by any means, but it’s a good outline of Trump’s tax plan.

I suggest you check it out.

(Bush is still fiddling around with the broken system)

[Pelham]

Of those the Niskanen, Anderson, and Roberts books are the most worthwhile for understanding the Reagan program since all three played a role in designing or implementing his economic program. Lindsey’s book is probably the best for providing data on how the tax cuts actually worked out.

Lindsey also wrote an interesting monograph detailing the difference between an optimal tax rate for growing the economy versus the optimal tax rate for generating government revenue. Seems a lot of people assume that they are the same when they’re not. Reagan’s program aimed for growth.

Shirley, Michael Reagan and Dolan aren’t economists and weren’t involved in working on Reagan’s economic program AFAIK so for my purpose I suspect that they would be of limited interest.

[LS]

Except that I’ve interviewed people in every department, including the guys in Treasury, and others. But, believe what you want. You can read the real story in my bio when it’s done.

[AdaGray]

More RINO blather.

[Jim W N]

Fighting for the freedom to choose is not RINO blather, but fighting against it is.

Your problem is you don’t distinguish between the voluntary cooperation of the free market economy which is the ONLY creator of wealth and perfectly constitutional and desirable, and the unconstitutional attempts of the feds to blur political boundaries and United States national and political sovereignty.

Political “globalization” is not the same as free trade. In fact, free trade tends to foster more freedom in otherwise totalitarian countries. Free trade STRENGTHENS national economies and sovereignty and government interference in the free market weakens such results.

The Left WANTS you to confuse these two things. Socialism blurs the distinction when government unconstitutionally meddles in the free market.

OF course the clear-minded answer is to DEMOLISH SOCIALISM, NOT THE FREE MARKET. The RINO answer is for more socialism and government interference in the free market, which is a stupid and self-inflicting choice

[AdaGray]

Say what?

[Pelham]

Well that’s nice that you interviewed people from every department. I don’t know what most of them would have had to do with Reagan’s economic program but I’m sure you’ll inform us. At least they will have actually worked for Reagan unlike Art Laffer, which was my initial point.

“But, believe what you want”

So I should take your word over Martin Anderson or Martin Feldstein? Since you were denigrating Anderson earlier you appear to think that your knowledge of what went into the Reagan economic program is better than his. I’ll be curious to see his opinion of your book.

[LS]

Anderson wrote what he wanted from his perspective. I'm getting all perspectives, including Joe Wright in BoB and members of the Treasury. We'll see where the evidence ---all of it---leads. But it wouldn't be the first time, when all the evidence is in, that one guy's perspective, is off.

But, you see, at least I am not relying on some guy's book---or even a couple---but am in the Reagan Library in the administration papers themselves and talking to all the significant actors. So continue to believe what you want, cause you're nowhere near the primary sources, nor have any of the biographers been near the Reagan papers, nor have some of them interviewed the principals that I've talked to.