Posted on 02/08/2016 4:30:07 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Steve Forbes ran for president twice -- in 1996 and 2000 -- spending a reported $69 million of his own money in failed bids to win the Republican nomination. His campaigns mostly focused on establishing a flat income tax and other similar economic reforms.
The multi-millionaire chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes Media isn't running for president this time around, but he does have a new book out this week (Reviving America), promoting three big reforms he believes America should adopt: repeal and replace Obamacare with something akin to a free-market health-care system; scrapping the Federal income tax code in favor of a flat tax; and overhauling the Federal Reserve, including re-linking the U.S. dollar with the price of gold.
We sat down with Forbes, 68, for a brief chat during a visit to TheStreet offices in New York. Here's what he had to say about Donald Trump, what other Republican candidates need to do, and who he's considering supporting for president. This interview has been condensed for clarity and length.
Must Read: Steve Forbes' Plan to Revive America: Drop Obamacare, Flatten Tax Code
TheStreet: Donald Trump has made a huge splash in this election.
Steve Forbes: He's tapped into -- in a way I don't think he anticipated, nor did anyone else -- into the depth of the anger, frustration, contempt of Americans for the political class.
As you know, most Americans still think we're in a recession. Most Americans have seen their real wages decline in the last six years. They sense -- they don't have to be told it -- that this is the worst recovery from a recession in American history.
Then you compound that with the feeling that this current administration does not have its heart in fighting Islamic terrorism...that's a lethal combination.
The question becomes which candidate or candidates are going to be able to tap into it in a positive way, like Reagan did in the late '70s and early '80s.
TST: It sounds like you're implying that he's tapped into something very cleverly, but his message isn't positive or the right Republican or conservative message.
SF: It's been a mixed message. His tax plan is pretty good. It's not a flat tax, which I advocate, and several other candidates have gotten on board. Certainly what he's proposed is better than what we have today. On trade, I am a free trader. I don't want tariffs -- to me, tariffs are taxes.
And on immigration, I think his proposals are a non-starter, legally and morally. But what is out there is that people do want far more effective methods in dealing with Islamic terrorism.
So, what he has sensed in a way the others haven't is what the mood of a lot of people is. Every time he makes a statement, it causes a "hoo-ha."
What candidates should be doing is not complaining about trump. They can denounce his proposals, but instead of whining about it -- that he sucks the oxygen out of the room -- if you want to be heard, have something to say.
If you ask voters, what is Jeb Bush's theme? Blank. What are the others' themes? Well, they have some good ideas, but they haven't connected the dots -- the way that Reagan did in '80, the way that Kennedy did in '60. These people who make their living in politics haven't stepped up to the plate and acted like entrepreneurs -- if I have a message, how do I get it out there? If the electorate has changed, how do I do it?
TST: Do you think he has a chance of winning the Republican nomination?
SF: I'm humbled. I don't rule anything out now. Who would have thought Bernie sanders, looking at the other side would get 30%-to-40% of the vote -- everyone is focused on Republicans but look at this guy!
It shows people are dissatisfied, whether it's on the left or on the right.
TST: Is there someone you do support for president?
SF: No. I compare it to the dating game. I keep on looking at the candidates and finding good things in some and trying to piece it all together.
TST: Based on some of the policies you put forward in your new book, that you've been putting forward for a while, if I could just reach a little bit, it sounds like Rand Paul is a candidate that would be close to getting your support. Is he or any of the other candidates maybe a little bit in the lead in terms of your support?
SF: I don't agree with him on foreign policy. But I think both he and [Ted] Cruz, Cruz especially, is ahead of understanding the problems at the Fed. So, I like that. They both have flat tax proposals, but I wish they'd get rid of the VAT component. So, none are quite there, but some get pieces of it.
[Marco] Rubio for example is very good on foreign policy but his tax proposal is one of the worst ones out there.
December 201, 2016
CORRECTION
Dec 20, 2015
More garbage from the GOPe.
What in the world are you talking about?
Sounds like Forbes wants open borders, and cheap labor.
“And on immigration, I think his proposals are a non-starter, legally and morally. But what is out there is that people do want far more effective methods in dealing with Islamic terrorism.”
Steve will learn a bit about immigration laws once Trump takes office. We actually have VERY STRONG laws and with Trump running things, any judge that tries to nullify or modify those laws will simply be ignored.
"......The charismatic Mr. Trump's economic platform is pure Jabberwocky. As Megan McCardle pointed out:
Trump's economic policy isn't really a policy; it consists of claiming magical abilities to reclaim the jobs that foreigners have stolen from us, and a ritual genuflection toward lower taxes. All politics contains some element of this, of course: Just listen to the Democratic debaters on stage claiming that bankers nearly singlehandedly destroyed the American economy, and that ambitious programs can be financed largely by raising taxes on a tiny group of ultrawealthy people. But this is combined with some vision of what the economy should look like, resting on moral and empirical premises about fairness, justice, opportunity and equality. Trump's argument is pretty much entirely "strangers stole your stuff, and I'm going to make them give it back, or at least keep them from stealing any more."
Hey. We voters are a lot smarter than the candidates seem to think! At least Trump is campaigning on prosperity. That said, as I pointed out here Trump's proposed tax "reform" has been neutrally scored by the Tax Foundation as a $10T deficit bomb (and skewed toward the wealthy). Hello Tea Party?
As to his monetary policy, as I pointed out here, Mr. Trump criticized Fed Chair Janet Yellen before she raised the discount rate for failing to raise interest rates while, in the next breath, claiming that raising interest rates was a recipe for "a recession-slash-depression." Come in, Houston: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Meanwhile, Cruz's proposal to replace the tax code with a 10% flat tax (with ample exemptions for working families), coupled with a Business Transfer Tax, has been scored by the neutral Tax Foundation as close to deficit neutral and beneficial to every level of worker, from us Gilligans to the Thurston Howell IIIs (and Loveys), across-the-board. Very Reaganesque and unsurprisingly so, having been architected by Arthur Laffer, one of the premier minds behind the Reagan tax rate cuts.
On monetary policy, Cruz has called for the gold standard, which I have called a very good idea and the best idea - for restoring prosperity - in the presidential debate. Cruz would be insulated from attacks by Trump because Trump has spoken sympathetically, albeit ignorantly, about the gold standard. Trump, on WMUR last year:
WE USED TO HAVE A VERY SOLID COUNTRY BECAUSE IT WAS BASED ON A GOLD STANDARD FOR IT WE DO NOT HAVE THAT ANYMORE. THERE IS SOMETHING VERY NICE ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF THAT. IT WOULD BE VERY HARD TO DO AT THIS POINT AND ONE OF THE PROBLEMS IS WE DO NOT HAVE THE GOLD. OTHER PLACES HAVE THE GOLD.
To indulge in the unseemly expedient of facts for a moment, America has, and by far, the largest stock of monetary gold in the world. Moreover, the gold standard does not even require particularly large stocks of gold. Prof. Lawrence White, of George Mason University, definitively has put the "not enough gold" myth about the gold standard, among many other such myths, to rest.
Trump's promise of a worldwide-depression-inducing tariff would be another albatross around his neck if only he were forcefully held to account. Such a Depression would not merely be Great. It would be The Greatest Depression Ever!
On taxes, money, and trade Cruz's proposals are sensible and defensible. Trump's ideas do not hold up even to casual scrutiny. Trump has a brutally exposed flank right in the heart of what we voters most yearn for (according to all the polls): Prosperity.........."
So that's the little fraud behind magnum cum laude Rafael's plan to get a 10% flat tax. A VAT.
Seriously? I bet you haven't lived in a county with a VAT. We won't have Amero-style tax fraud any more. We will have Euro-fraud along with a Euro-bureaucracy that will look like some behemoth monster of the IRS and the European parliatment to collect it, and enforce it. Only it will be new, without a history of judicial review so the taxpayer will be completely unprotected while we spend the next 300 years sorting out any legal and judicial rights anyone has.
Anyone falling for this is STYUPID (British pronunciation).
What kind of an inside the Beltway troll is your man here. I know, some sort of I can write a supreme court brief weasel.
Ted promised to eliminate the IRS. What he did not tell us is he will create an even bigger bureaucracy in its place.
I thought this article was about Forbes, rather than being a hit piece on Trump?
As an example, as you point out here, Cruz plans to flatten taxes by imposing a VAT. It is simple fraud. You tell everyone that the first $36,000 of their income is tax free, but forget to tell them that if they use their income to buy anything then it is subject to a VAT of some unspecified rate (oh say 20%).
Your boy just performed an unnatural act on the family pet. This is not a solution. It is a promise of a nightmare!
And on the other side we have Bernie mimicking Walter Mondull and his “I will raise your taxes” theme. Hillary doesn’t say anything but remember Bill rammed through a huge increase in his first term. I still remember the “Goodbye Margorie” (Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky)serenade in the House chamber.
By the way the VAT rate in the UK is 20%. I would like to know what fraud-boy’s proposed VAT rate is. Did he write it down in his 10 pages, single spaced [!] “plan” for economic reform.
But he doesn’t like a VAT which Cruz apparently does.
You step out of a ristorante in Italy and a tax guy might be lurking just outside the door to check your receipt -- it's almost Biblical. Or like the door "greeters" at Walmart who ask to see your receipt to check if you have stolen anything in the cart. Only it would be every store, everywhere, subject to receipt checking. It would require an army of government bouncers and you'd hardly be able to get through your errands in a day.
Note the poster of the article.
Her job is to just post Trump hit pieces.
President Obama is pushing a path to citizenship as a "poison pill" to prevent meaningful immigration reform, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) charged Monday. "The part that I"ve got deep concerns about is any path to citizenship for those who are here illegally," Cruz said during an interview with Sean Hannity. "I think that is profoundly unfair to the millions of legal immigrants who have followed the rules, who have waited in line.
"I think the reason that President Obama is insisting on a path to citizenship is that it is designed to be a poison pill to scuttle the whole bill, so he can have a political issue in 2014 and 2016. I think that's really unfortunate," continued Cruz.
The Tea Party favorite said Congress could easily pass a comprehensive immigration reform deal if Democrats, and particularly Obama, stopped demanding the inclusion of a pathway to citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally.
Cruz's comments came as a bipartisan group of senators indicate that it's nearly done crafting a broad immigration bill. The so-called "Gang of Eight" hopes to unveil the legislation in April, with Sen. Lindsey Graham on Sunday suggesting that the group could unveil legislation as early as next week...."
WASHINGTON - Among the 300 amendments to the Senate immigration bill is one that would take away one of its central purposes: giving a pathway to citizenship to the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), an almost certain "no" vote on the bill from the so-called gang of eight, filed an amendment on Tuesday to ban anyone who has been in the U.S. without status from becoming a citizen at any point.
The path to citizenship under the gang of eight bill is already a difficult one. It would take about 13 years and require immigrants to complete a number of requirements, such as learning English and paying hefty fines. Undocumented immigrants would first apply for provisional immigrant status, and most would be required stay in the U.S. for at least a decade before being eligible to apply for legal permanent residency. They could then eventually apply to be a U.S. citizen. But the government would have to meet certain border security benchmarks before any provisional immigrant could move into legal permanent resident status........
Ted Cruz Files Amendment To Deny Path To Citizenship As Senate Works On Bill
......"The amendments filed today to strengthen border security and reform our legal immigration system will not only bring meaningful, effective improvements to our immigration system, but also have a chance of becoming law," said Cruz in a statement. "America is a nation of immigrants, built by immigrants and we need to honor that heritage by fixing our broken immigration system, while upholding the rule of law and championing legal immigration."
His amendments are among more than 300 filed by the Tuesday evening deadline. Republicans wanting tighter enforcement provisions filed a majority of the amendments, with Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, leading the pack with 77 amendments.
Supporters of the bill, mainly of the part of it that would legalize millions of undocumented immigrants, kept a steady drumbeat in defense of the measure though emails, websites and social media.
In a press release, America's Voice, a leading national group that advocates for more lenient immigration laws, singled out Cruz's anti-citizenship amendment as particularly worrisome.
"This would not only destroy the path to citizenship in the Senate bill - the popular heart of an immigration reform solution - but also turn its back on 100 years of precedent in immigration policy," said the release..........
........Cruz says his amendment was a "poison pill" designed to doom the Gang of Eight reform package that Rubio co-authored.
So who's actually correct? There are two big points to unpack.
First is whether Cruz's amendment was indeed a "poison pill" meant to kill the immigration bill, which the Texas senator's campaign now contends. That is unequivocally true, so point goes to Cruz.
Second is whether Cruz's amendment signaled his true policy beliefs at the time. That's significantly murkier and ultimately, may never be knowable.
Let's start with the first point.
The bipartisan group of eight senators - including battle-tested veterans and relative newcomers like Rubio - painstakingly negotiated a delicate compromise in early 2013 that would overhaul every corner of the U.S. immigration system, including a 13-year pathway to citizenship for millions here illegally.
Fans and foes of the legislation, as well as observers at the time, knew the core bill couldn't change too dramatically because that would upset that compromise, which not only had the backing of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate but also coalitions off the Hill, such as labor unions and the business lobby.
Cruz's amendment - which called for stripping out a pathway to citizenship, but keeping a path for legalization - would have done precisely that.
The night before each Senate Judiciary Committee markup, senior Gang of Eight aides would huddle to scour through each of the amendments that were teed up for the following day, determining which proposals would be palatable and which would be unacceptable. This strategy was meant to ensure the core elements of the Gang of Eight deal would stay intact (the four members of the Gang who sat on the Judiciary Committee would vote in a bloc, usually with the rest of the committee Democrats, to vote down potential deal-killers).
"This one was one that clearly we all had to oppose because it went to the core of the deal," recalled an aide to a Senate Democrat during the 2013 negotiations. "It could've unraveled the whole deal."
Sure, Cruz himself never called it a "poison pill" at the time. But no senator refers to his own proposal as a poison pill, even if it plainly is. The Gang of Eight never considered Cruz as "gettable," and it was well-known at the time that Cruz was never going to vote for the bill and was in fact, trying to kill it.
"Everyone was rolling their eyes and smirking when he said it would improve the bill," said the aide. "I don't think anybody took it seriously.".........
Jan 29, 2016 - FR THEAD: Megyn Kelly to Ted Cruz: "The record supports you."
"After the Fox News-Google debate Megyn Kelly interviewed Ted Cruz. [7:40 Video begins with a 1:00 clip of the earlier debate]
Kelly continued to pursue the "amnesty" angle that she'd begun during the debate [starting at 3:41] - about his history on illegals, immigration and amnesty, but concedes:
Kelly: "I look at your record, a lot, to see: Did Ted Cruz really want legalization, or didn't he?"
"I think the record supports you - that you did not want it; it does."
"It really was a poison pill amendment."
Then there is back and forth where Kelly states that Cruz had said that he wanted the Gang of Eight bill to pass.
Sen. Cruz corrects her and states that he wants immigration reform to pass -- but he never said he wanted the Gang of Eignt bill to pass. [He directs everyone to see the 11-page, very very detailed immigration plan on website (linked in comment below)].
Cruz explains tactics: "When debating Democrats [Schumer] you use the language of Democrats to show their hypocrisy."
"Schumer talked about 'coming out of the shadows' but it wasn't about that."
"Chuck Schumer said, 'If there is no citizenship, there is no reform and we'll kill the whole thing.'"
Their interview ended this way:
Megyn Kelly: "The record supports you." [Cruz: "Anyone here illegally is permanently ineligible for citizenship."]
"It was a poison pill."
"You do have a consistent record on that; I will give you that; we did look back on it."
******************
Donald Trump on immigration:
News Max - Nov 29, 2012: Donald Trump: Mean-Spirited GOP Won't Win Elections
Whether intended or not, comments and policies of Mitt Romney and other Republican candidates during this election were seen by Hispanics and Asians as hostile to them, Trump says.
"Republicans didn't have anything going for them with respect to Latinos and with respect to Asians," the billionaire developer says.
"The Democrats didn't have a policy for dealing with illegal immigrants, but what they did have going for them is they weren't mean-spirited about it," Trump says. "They didn't know what the policy was, but what they were is they were kind."
Romney's solution of "self deportation" for illegal aliens made no sense and suggested that Republicans do not care about Hispanics in general, Trump says.
"He had a crazy policy of self deportation which was maniacal," Trump says. "It sounded as bad as it was, and he lost all of the Latino vote," Trump notes. "He lost the Asian vote. He lost everybody who is inspired to come into this country."
The GOP has to develop a comprehensive policy "to take care of this incredible problem that we have with respect to immigration, with respect to people wanting to be wonderful productive citizens of this country," Trump says...."
"The key bit comes at 5:40 of the clip. Money line: "I always had a great relationship with Harry Reid. And frankly, if I weren't running for office I'd be able to deal with her [Pelosi], I'd be able to deal with Reid, I'd be able to deal with anybody." This point has been made often, most recently by Andy McCarthy, but it can't be repeated enough: This guy is on the verge of beating Ted Cruz as an "outsider": by touting his record of cronyism. How can you be anti-establishment, wonders McCarthy, when you're crowing about your history of essentially bribing politicians, including politicians from the other party? It's a perfect complement to Trump, the least socially conservative candidate in the Republican field, landing the endorsement of the son of the man who founded the Moral Majority.".......
But this is good.
Watch how Ted Cruz explains to an angry farmer, who eventually quiets down to listen, how he is going to help farmers.
All subsidies - across the board - oil, gas, wind, solar, ethanol are gone; EPA fuel blend, gone.
Death tax, gone.
Happy Iowan: How Cruz Crushed Ethanol [and helps farmers] - "Hot d*mn!" a gentleman shouted from the back of the room. Feb 3rd FR THREAD
Her job is to just post Trump hit pieces.
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My advice would be DON'T FEED THE TROLL. Maybe a notice should be placed on every one of her troll postings.
"Imagine 4.9 million new jobs. Instead of Obama's income stagnation, imagine average wages rising 12.2 percent over the next decade. Capital investment rising 43.9 percent. And every income-level seeing double-digit increases in after-tax income. Imagine exports and manufacturing jobs booming. Our trade deficit falling as the tax bias against American made goods is eliminated. Imagine a 10 percent income tax, with every American filling out his or her taxes on a postcard or iPhone app. And abolishing the IRS as we know it." - Ted Cruz
You’re advocating for thread burning - a scarlet letter perhaps?
Since when does vetting a candidate during a primary election get that kind of treatment on FR?
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