Listen on the go with this free cspan radio app. Host Grover Norquist serves as the president of americans for tax reform. We hear a lot of debate about the impact of the 2017 tax cuts. What would you say about that . Guest several things. What it did to economic growth, gdp, and it has gotten stronger. Wage growth is up. The last 15 months, about 3 . And that is particularly in the Median Income people, middle income folks Getting Better wages. We are also seeing 7 million job openings with less than 7 Million People looking. More people are leaving their jobs, which is a good sign. I means they know there are other jobs. You want people to leave jobs they are not happy with that are not going somewhere, and they are finding jobs. And the total workforce, the number of people looking for work, under obama, that actually declined. One of the reasons unemployment went down is people were so discouraged they quit looking, they retired early they did not , go to work, they stayed in school, they stayed home. They were not working. That was declining during a recovery. All but the First Six Months of obama was a recovery. It was the weakest recovery in modern history. We never had a recovery like that. But worse, people were leaving the workforce. During recovery. Entering the workforce. Peopleentering the workforce. Every once in a while, you see lots of people get jobs, but the unemployment number doesnt move because as many people start looking for work and that is a good sign. More people wanting to work and finding work, more people being able to choose their jobs. To heck with you im going somewhere else, voluntary departures are up as people look. Wages are up. And companies are we stopped , scaring companies out of the country. During the obama years and before, we had a worldwide tax system. Remember what we said to people, we said your Company Earns money in france, you will pay taxes in france. If you ever bring money to america, we will tax you again. We were one of the only countries that did what we did, which was to double tax American Business earnings overseas, and so trillions of dollars was stuck overseas, not brought back to america. How is ended. Host is there a number of companies coming back to america specifically because of tax cuts . Guest step one, we stop the bleeding. We stopped the thousands of Companies Going out the door. You remember during the obama years, burger king was bought by a canadian, Brazilian Company because the same burgers, same people, same everything except owned by somebody not the united states. The united it was worth more because of our tax policy. Our government did that to our businesses. So all of those things have shifted. All of those things suggest real, positive trend. The only challenge we have right now is the tax fight we have with china. If that gets settled, we will see Even Stronger growth. Host do you think there will be actual settlement . Despite the rhetoric you hear from both sides. Guest just before you come to a deal, both sides scream the loudest, so im not quite sure what to make it. It appears as if they are going to get certain things agreed to, china keeps changing their mind on what those are. And they will stop the increase on tariffs and begin to bring them back. That is the signal that the markets and businesses need to know. You need to know what the price of steel is going to be. You need to know whether certain tariffs, what do i do . I dont know. I do not know what the price of aluminum or steel is going to be it is a political decision , because rather than a marketing one. Host we hear from democrats on this program quite frequently that the deficit america will see has a direct correlation for the tax cuts passed in what do 2017. You think about that . Guest first, they said it was only for rich people. And then they had to deal with the fact that on april 15, 2018, just a few months after the bill passed, the average, the Median Income for a family of four, earning 71,000 per year that , family got a 2000 tax cut. The median single mom with one child got a 1300, got a 1300 tax cut. Earning these are tax cut on 41,000. Middle income americans. The tax rate went down, the total taxes went down. And so, the argument that it was all for the rich is what democrats say about any tax cut and then they turn around and raise taxes on poor people. A carbon tax on lower income people, a much better part is a cost of living. But now you shift to the deficit. Actually, revenue is coming in above what it was before and if you understand what did you project, about 80 of what they thought they lose has been coming into growth. What we did do, the democrats insisted on a massive spending increase. They were not going to give the president his defense budget. That increase in spending is the projected increase in the deficit. Host the budget control act of 2018 . Guest each time they have done that, as soon as democrats had control of the house as well, that gives them a lot of control. Remember, when the republicans had the house, they forced a lot of spending restraint, about 2 trillion worth. The democrats are using that to increase spending. Spending is too high. That is causing increases. What is helping us that the economic growth, more people working, bringing in more money. Host have republicans changed generally when it comes to spending issues . They used to be the party of fiscal restraint. That is what they were commonly known as. As that changed in your mind . Guest what the Republican Party is focused on is reducing the size of the government which is what you have to do if you want to form government cost less. Right now it is bankrupting the country with the Entitlement Programs the congress doesnt vote on. The problem is not this congress, it is congress from 1964 to 1966 and 1934 to 1936 that created half of the spending budget through their Entitlement Programs. That is what is bankrupting the country. The democrats when they get into power add to the unfunded liabilities by creating obamacare or medicare for all. Every democrat once new entitlements. Not any of them want to rerform any of the entitlements. There is a major difference on spending but until you have the votes in the senate, it is tough to reform Something Like entitlement. Host here is how you can ask questions. 2027488000 for democrats. 2027488001 for republicans. And independents, 2027488002. You can text us at 20274880023. Analysis on your side, the republican control of Congress Versus democraticcontrolled with spending issues. What does the chartres what does the chart show . Guest what the chart shows is that the top and bottom half and where you see the blue, above and below you have a democrat house and senate. Before that yellow line, the yellow line is the first year where 95 of republicans in the house and senate fund the Taxpayer Protection pledge never to raise taxes and rejecting the bush tax increase. Before that, the republicans had control of old houses of congress for 4 of 62 years. You had democrats overwhelming control for 62 years minus four. Since the Republican Party became the party, and wont raise taxes, and hasnt, they have wo the majority of the house and the senate two thirds of the time. And so, the two parties have separated out and the Republican Party is an infinitely Stronger Party at the state and local levels, but particularly at the National Level by being the party that will not raise taxes. And they invade small countries they cant pronounce. Host democrat line, you are on, go ahead. Caller good morning. You followed me for a on twitter, and i followed you. We had some very heightened conversations. My first question, i actually have 3 questions are my first question is what will that cost what pays for the cost of government . Taxes. If taxes pay for the cost of government, that means your law about not raising taxes, is against the law. That means that government will not be paid for. My second question, where is the 4 trillion that was repatriated . Im pretty sure that it was done already, so if the money is back here in america and if that is the case, then where is the money . Trump did make a pledge to reduce the deficit, but what he did was increase the deficit. Host thanks. Guest two things. One of the reasons i like the Taxpayer Protection act is that people can make a pledge not to vote to raise taxes. That doesnt mean taxes will be raised if you get outvoted. The democrats have raised taxes in the first two years of the clinton presidency, and every republican voted against those. Then they raised taxes again starting on poor people in the obama years and raised taxes in the first two years when republicans voted against that. But when the republicans got control of the house and the senate, they were able to stop any tax increase on middle income people and everybody as long as the republicans had control of the house or the senate and often, they had both. The president gets put in a very difficult position where the democrats in the house have said you have to take all this additional spending, which is where the added deficit comes from, or we wont give you a defense budget. Just as obama was in a position where the republicans said unless you reduce spending over the next decade by 2 trillion, we wont give you the debt ceiling increase that he wanted. And the president had to capitulate. Obama dropped spending dramatically for what his budget had like 2 trillion over a decade, and that was extremely helpful, but he didnt want to do that. Just as trump would prefer not to increase spending. I blame people for things they do and any republican that votes for a tax increase should be blaming a democrat. But if you are in congress and you vote against something that passes, thats not your fault. Host virginia, independent line. Caller good morning, gentlemen. I appreciate your take on things. When you are talking about responsibility of people acting professional and doing the right thing, how about the idea of shutting down government . Shutting down government in 2013 had a 20 billion impact on the economy. Do you hold republicans responsible, anyone responsible if they cant even run a budget . Cant program a budget and cannot operate the government without having to go to the extreme of shutting it down . Guest you of course remember when we had the budget shutdown, many budget shutdowns during the reagan years because the house and senate couldnt agree. It didnt really affect anything. You had the more significant shutdown with the republicans in the house and senate when they won both house and senate against clinton and they pass a budget and clinton said i dont want to reform welfare. So he shut the government down. The republicans passed a budget, or the president who vetoed that budget . Same thing when we had arguments with obama when he said i wont sign a budget, i wont an act a budget the republicans put or were, put forward. Sometimes it comes true that you have a shutdown. The republicans have a very good piece of legislation. In order to avoid the many small shutdowns that weve had over the years, lets just say if we cant agree, we go to last years budget. I think thats a great idea, everybody has a job and gets paid. And then you wouldnt have a shutdown. Host Pedro Echevarria so the use of shortterm crs as a tool, what do you think about that . We have currently until december 21 or so . Guest that is the current shutdown. While they are negotiating, they do that sort of thing. Perhaps they would rather have the crisis further away from the election, people can make correct or incorrect political choices on that. I do like that the republicans have said if we cant agree, just go to last years budget so the government does not shut down. You would not have to have shortterm crs. Host mike from twitter is asking which title i programs would you say are bankrupting our country . Guest there are a couple of things. What we could do is take the welfare programs the meanstested programs where you get money because you are you and you are poor, not because of Social Security, you put money in and it is supposed to be saved for you to take care of you when you are older. Welfare means tested programs to the states and each state would get what they got last year and it would grow with inflation but not more. That is exactly what bill clinton signed, republicans three times past that reform for aid to families with dependent children. First Entitlement Program that had a serious reform. That went to the states and the states were able to take care of people who need it. A lot of people did not need to be on it, so there was a decline in the number of people on welfare. What happened was states were able to focus on people who actually needed to do that with medicaid and obamacare and a number of the other programs, but let the 50 states find out what works. We do know is that what we have right now doesnt work very well. Test the different approaches, we will find out better ways. Host republican in florida, susan. Caller i think that the democrats are going to cheat big, so i think the stock market is going to plummet. I wanted to ask, what are some of the things we could do. Your concern is the stock. I thinkght go down you should feel very comfortable about the stock market. If you see an agreement which freezes the tariffs so they dont go up and hopefully they come down with china, i think you should feel very confident about the stock market. You see every time there is progress on the agreement with china, the stock market jumps. It is just trying to be better, it is really offending the idea of getting stability. Hopefully china stops dealing with intellectual property and trading her goods and services a little more fairly than they do. We are looking to get some improvement as well as stability. I think the stock market is going to do well. The one thing that could damage the stock market is if people think that the democrats are going to win the house and the senate and presidency take a , look at the democrat proposals. Every single one of them will make your 401k smaller. They want to tax your 401k, they want lawyers to sue the 401k to invest. They want more regulations on your 401k they want to raise the price of energy on all the companies your if i had to say what the next election is going to be about, the republicans have another tax bill coming out in addition to the one thats out, and that will be the one that they campaign on. Democrats are not going to help pass it, they want to go in the other direction. It will focus on middle income americans making their savings more secure. 100 million americans have 401ks as a savings. 40 million americans have individual retirement accounts. That is a good chunk of the American People. If everything that Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders or any of the democrats running would do like raising the corporate rates for all the other taxes, every one of them, they step first on the face of your 401k they damage your life savings. Your life savings is going to be damaged because they say they are throwing punches at a company but your life savings you invested gets damaged with those taxes, regulations, and antienergy proposals and legislation and regulation. If the republicans hold the senate, the presidency, invest heavily. If they hold the senate and the presidency, stay in the market, but it will not be as exciting as if they get the house to make those changes that will strengthen investments in 401k host Elizabeth Warren at the debate the other night talked about her idea of a well tax and tax and what it would do for all americans, not just a certain sector. Doing a wealth tax is not about punishing anyone, its about saying you build something great in this country, good for you, but you did it using workers all that we pay to educate. You did it getting her goods on roads and bridges that all of us helped pay for. You did it protected by police and firefighters that all of us pay the salaries for. So when you make it big, when you make it really big, and you make the top 1 10 of 1 , pick in cents, so 2 everybody else get a chance to make it. Here is the thing. That is something the democrats care about, independence care about, and republicans care about. Because regardless of party affiliation, people understand across this country that our government is working better and better for the billionaires and the rich and the wellconnected and worse and worse for everyone else. We come together when we acknowledge that. Guest it is interesting that she wants to talk about a wealth tax. I understand that is legeredemain, and that is saying look over here and tax the rich. But if you look at her proposal, it includes a 6 wage tax, income tax, 6 on all workers in order to pay for part of her medicare for everybody. She has dramatic tax increases on middle income americans. Many European Countries would love taxes. Almost all of them. Almost all of them got rid of the wealth taxes because they dont raise the kind of money she is talking about. They are very difficult, but one thing to keep in mind is when people talk about raising taxes on the rich as she does, they have to finish the sentence. The sentence goes on going to taxes onng to raise the rich first. She wants a wealth tax which is not mentioned in the constitution. Its not constitutional. When we have income tax, they have to put into because constitution, you may have an income tax. You would have to amend the constitution to get a wealth tax, or you could have an income tax and call it a wealth tax which is what they probably would do. The top tax bracket when they put the income tax in was 7 . She says its only 2 . Top tax bracket now, about 37 . You had to make 11 million. 11 million in todays money. To be in the top bracket when they put the income tax in. Now its about 450,000 for the top bracket. So she is only going to tax the rich. Billions and that number would , come down each year just as a value added tax in europe goes up every year. Thats always went up every year as they put out. We saw that with the alternative minimum tax which was designated to hit about 50 people. Less than 200 people were not paying their fair share. They put in a tax that ultimately millions until the republicans changed it. It was scheduled to hit 20 Million People and 30 Million People. A tax on 200 people was a lot further, it became a tax on tens of millions. And we go through this again and again. The tax is only supposed to hit people and it came down and started hitting poor people. Death tax was only supposed to hit people and it came down and started hitting poor people. Each time we do this, politicians love to have trouble down taxation. We tax the rich and we get everybody and help fund the spanishamerican war tax. With a tax on phones, use longdistance. That goes of 5,000. 5000. Cost about and was a tax on rich people, that tax less than 100 years and it was a tax on everybody. Her tax the rich will soon be a tax on everyone and she has already told us for her medicare for everybody that she has got a 6 wage tax. Look at europe. She wants to say we should have things like europe. In the united states, taxation on middle income people, we dont tax the rich people, that is not much different here. In the united states, middle income families, a family of 11 of their income all Social Security wage taxes. You go to france, its 21 . Belgian, 28. Sweden, 25. Denmark, 31. This is not higher taxes on rich people, this is higher taxes on the median emily in the country andmily in the country. Then add to that all the programs that she likes with the value added tax. The average sales tax, 7 . Europe, 20 value added. 20 for france, 21 for denmark. The country she points to wax the middle class terribly hard. Much higher taxes than we do. The difference between us and europe is how heavily they tax the middle class to pay for all the programs that she is going to do the same thing to the middle class but she is pretending that somebody else is going to pay for it. If the europeans could have done this, dont you think the european leftwing parties would have gotten all doing this . Fromuld have gotten it all a handful of billionaires . They didnt, they couldnt, and she cant, either. Host carolyn, democrats line. You are next. Caller i just have a couple of questions. First of all, you talk about taxes. I think its very confusing. Most people in america if you think about it, let the democrats explain their own policy, not you. Because we all know that republicans, they dont tell the truth. Guest the numbers i was just quoting is from all the European Countries together, the oecd. These are not my numbers, these are theirs. You will have to deal with reality, 00 25 29 caller here is the reality. Number one, do not talk about what the republicans are doing because trumps policy and terms of increased rates, 22 states. The number one employer is walmart. No policy degrees walmarts one increasedcy walmarts dollar increase. Lets give trump a boost. Lets increase the wage by one dollar. 22 states, walmart is the biggest employer. They increase their minimum wage by one dollar. That is a fact. Guest one dollar per hour . Caller number two. When obama was president , we are not going to stimulate the wethe republicans decided, are not going to stimulate the economy. The stimulus that we got in the midst of a recession was less than trumps tax cuts. If the republicans had allowed us to manage democrats while we were in charge, we would have stimulated the economy just like you did. Guest one, there was an effort at massive spending increases by the president and massive tax increases by obama. That was in the first two years of his presidency. People reacted so poorly that he lost control of the house and the senate because the American People rejected his big tax, big spending, High Energy Cost approach. The other challenge is when you ask what people are going to do, that is where the Taxpayer Protection pledge is so helpful to the American People that they will never raise taxes. Obama was very angry that the republicans promised they would not raise taxes and he could not talk them into it. But if you remember, joe biden saying the same thing president did. Running for president back in 2008, no one making less than 250,000 under Barack Obamas plan will see one single penny of their tax raised, whether it is their Capital Gains tax, their income tax, their investment tax, any tax. There were a whole series of tax increases that directly hit lowincome people to fund obamacare. The efforts to raise energy taxes as well. These things all hit average americans. The promise that they wont taxes the middle income, but clinton did the same thing. Turned around and raised gasoline taxes. Raise taxes on everybody except the top 1 or 2 . Both obama and clinton, democrats all voted for it as well. They raise taxes on lower people evener income people, though they promised they would. Nt. And so i think its very important for the summary says they are going to tax the rich that they have a track record. They tax everyone. And everybody running for president on the democratic side. The carbon tax is a gasoline tax on not just the oil used for your car, what your Home Heating Oil and your airconditioning and your electricity, all energy usage. Its mostly lower income people. Your average people, that is a massive tax increase. I do think you should look at what the democrats do and judge what they say based on what theyve done before. Theyve told us they wont tax the middle class, and they do. Host florida, independent line. Caller yeah, here is my situation. Its like we are on a merrygoround. First and foremost, my problem with republicans is when they are not in office or in power, they are crying deficit, deficit, deficit. Then when they are in power, the deficit goes right out the window. Thats my first issue. My second issue is the numbers that you quote, i dont know where you are getting your statistics. Guest department of labor. Caller simply because of this, are they taking consideration the number of people that are dropping out of the workforce in comparison to the people who are in the workforce . It could be a point that there are not more jobs, there are more jobs than workers. Because we are dealing with a baby boom generation that is retiring, taking early Social Security. Im kind of in the sweet spot. Im 50, and im getting 100 or so job offers per day. For all of the people that are retiring that are 50 to 65. But then theres nobody taking my place. So, that goes to that. Host thanks. Guest very good point. I actually interested earlier in the show and the good news is that both discouraged workers under the republican tax cut and trumps presidency, discouraged workers are coming back into the workforce that there are so many jobs, and that is one of the healthy things. You are quite right that during the obama years, people were leaving the workforce and unfortunately, the overall job Participation Rate was declining. Now it is expanding. We not only have more jobs, but more people in the market looking for it. One thing, they are looking at a massive tax that nancy pelosi is putting forward and they actually passed in the house. When we talk about what the democrats are going to do to lowincome people, if you are trying to buy health care, they want to use up to 75 of tax on drugs. This is a rather dangerous project. They say they want to do it to tell them to lower their prices, but once they get those taxes in, they are not going to go away. Host with the reagan tax cuts that made america a detonation, those tax nation. Cuts passed over the years were not paid for. Guest theres two things. One, spending increased dramatically. Both military spending did, which was actually one of the few projects every day. As soon as the soviet union fell apart, they brought it back again. Usually they stick with it. We actually brought spending down after the cold war at that time. I would take a look at both the growth of the economy in the reagan years, and look at the debt compared to the wealth. Was there too much spending . Absolutely. In 1982, the president agreed to a tax increase. Three dollars of spending restraint for every dollar of tax increase. Never delivered the spending cuts. Spending was too much. The democrats had the house the entire time, and you could fight that but there is only so much you can do if one of the bodies is held by the democrats, they can for spending in order to keep the government open. Host from illinois, democrat line, joe is next. Caller i just wanted to mention about the tax cuts, affecting a general level of income. I am a senior citizen. I no longer have a medical deduction or a mortgage deduction. It has affected what i used to pay taxes. Guest several things. Overall, every state got about a 25 cut in taxes that their citizens were paying. It was a broad tax cut. I mentioned earlier, the average income family of four got about a 2000 tax cut going into the future. A single parent, one child earning less is a 1300 tax cut each year. And there were some numbers that came out, great wall street journal article a number of months ago. Average wage earner income went up by about 4000 during the trump presidency. During the obama and bush, 16 years. That number when up by thousands. 4000 in the two three years that weve had with the tax cut, the deregulation under President Trump. Could it be stronger if we had more spending restraint . Absolutely. I am not suggesting spending restraint is not key, it is central. We need to reform entitlements, we need to reform government to cost less. But what we could do on some of these issues, is to begin to deregulate, begin to reduce the tax burden. We have a lot to do. Host from athens, tennessee, republican line. Richard, hello. Caller a real quick question. We have about a 22 trillion debt. What is our magic number where that is the edge of the cliff where we cannot go past . Guest oh dear, dont tell the politicians but there is not necessarily an edge of the cliff. Japans debt is 200 gdp. They are doing ok but they keep raising taxes to pay it. They took their vat 5 of the 10 the last 5 years. They have a declining population and an aging population, so they have challenges that we dont have. Americans have more children, we have immigrants, we are not in the position that china is in the next 25 years losing 250 Million People between the ages of zero to 55. That 250 Million People over the age of 55 instead of under the age of 55 and the under 55 population is declining. It is not just that they are moving up, china has tremendous challenges. We have minor challenges compared to that but we do need to reform the entitlements and total spending. And we need growth. You get growth, you get more revenue and more opportunities, more people working, less people on welfare getting government support. All of those things together are very important. Less regulation, lower taxes, reduced spending, and that will get more growth which gives you more people working and more income to the government. Host this is the president of americans for tax reform, etr. Org. Thanks for your time. That is the end of the show. Coming up Tuesday Morning a discussion on u. S. Trade policy and the u. S. Mexico and canada trade deal. And then the former defense secretary medication secretary for secretary jim mattis, holding a line, inside trump spending on with secretary mattis. Watch washington journal at 7 00 eastern on Tuesday Morning. Join the discussion. Heres a look at our live coverage on tuesday. At 10 30 a. M. Eastern on cspan a look on european relations with the northeast region of africa followed at noon by a discussion on u. S. Policy in iraq and iran. Then, in the evening, our campaign 2020 coverage includes President Trump a Campaign Rally in sunrise, florida, after making the states new legal residents in late october. On cspan two at 9 30 a. M. Eastern, assistant air force secretary will roper talks about Acquisition Strategy and airpower capabilities. Chinas globalt we will look at chinas global influence and how it is affecting relations with the u. S. That is live from the Hudson Institute at noon, eastern. You do not want to lay an announcer go shopping and see what is now available at the cspan online store include our allnew campaign 2020 tshirts sweatshirts and hats. Go to cspan store. Org and browse all of our products. Former Massachusetts GovernorDeval Patrick spoke at the politics and eggs breakfast in new hampshire. Mr. Patrick shared policy positions and met oneonone with attendees before taking questions from reporters. Millingof crowd around]