Trumponomics. People talk about recession, whats your take to mark. I dont see a recession, i never say never because you never know whats going happen in six months or nine months but the economy is Pretty Healthy right now. If youre an American Worker looking for a job this is probably the best labor market in your or my lifetime. We have 7. 3 million unfilled jobs, thats larger than the entire population of indiana, thats how many excess jobs we have read theres million unemployed so even if we put every other unemployed american into a job, i think you configure that, that le means we got million jobs we still wouldnt be able to o fill a good situation and its allowed workers to bid up their wages because you get competition and then employers need to hire people ye, they will pay them more and you are seeing that with target, lowes and home depot and walmart and a lot of the retailers and major employers so thats a good thing. Wages are rising as they just said so the Employment Situation is good. Manufacturing is weak final little concern about that. Capital spending by businesses which is something i like to look at, i know my good friend larry kudlow likes the look at business spending, thats down this year so id say the growth rate which was three and 3 and a half percent last year is down to two and a lot of this is leading into something i know you want to ask me about which is the trade situation with china area thats the big dark cloud over the economy when i give the economy a b . This is now believe it or not, this recovery began in june 2009 or in like september 2019. This is one of the longest recovery without a recession. uthree for a second, critics would say that trade policy causing the slowdown but is the present approach i write one thenwent to mark. Thats atough one. I can to support what hes doing on china. Every day we see china is a menace on the world scene in terms of their predatory trade practices, a lot of illegal trade practices. They have never really opened up their markets to the United States as we have to them. They are increasingly thhostile in terms of their building up their Military Area and im amvery worried about the chinese, what they call their Liberation Army moving into hong kong area and i believe by the way those Hong Kong Freedom fighters deserve the nobel peace peace prize this year so they are an adversarial country to the United States right now. I get trump a lot of credit for standing up to them and being one of the first modern president s to say this is an adversary. I think a lot of people whether youre republican or democrat would agree china is a big problem so im hopeful that we get a trade deal because you know whats so frustrating about this pedro . If resident trump, president pxi would sit down at the table, china is going to have to make concessions. They stop stealing our intellectual property, lower their tariffs, that would be great for both countries. I think the economy would explode but its tough sweating. Trunk is surprised at how hard it is to get the government of beijing to make a deal. One of the critics of this process is the editors of the Washington Post right this thing the biggest economic live was the president declaration that trade wars are quickly and easily one. American farmers will gethurt and we will get richer by making americans pay more. Stores are paying a lot. Theres some truth to that. The idea this was going to be easy was wrong because now were almost 2 years into this trade war. I guess ill call it a trade war, trade dispute. Theres a big debate about whos actually paying the cost of these tariffs. Some people say its often worn by american consumers, you a tariff on and you say its more expensive but its not that simple because china could raise their prices by 10 or 15 or 20 percent they would have done that a long time ago. Theres evidence that the Chinese Government and manufacturers are eating a lot of that cost, that is to say theyre charging lower than they used to charge to take account of that higher tariff at the Cash Register but both sides are being hurt. The American People have said is this the right time to fight it . I happen to think yes but understand, some of my colleagues at the Heritage Foundation dont agree. Theres a lot of disagreements but i hope theres a peaceful truce on this and we get something done and as i said, once we get that trade dealamount and i dont know ifits going to happen next month or next year, i think the economy just explodes. Its the one thing thats holding back growth. 202 748 8002 and you can to your thoughts to steve moore at cspan wj on the topic of trade. The us mca. Do yousee ratification by our congress , whats the immediate . Guest when we talk about how we went against china, republican or democrat, liberal conservative, everybody wants the us tocome out ahead. One way you do that and one mistake trump made , one mistake he made was picking fights with some of our allies in europe andmexico and canada. And not really ice in a isolating china as the bad actor so if we could get back canada mexico trade agreement ratified by the senate and the congress i think it would be a huge plus because i think i love the vision and this was Ronald Reagans vision and bill clintons vision, democrat orrepublican to have the north American Continent via free trade zone. It was great idea, it had to be modernized. Lets get that done and the frustration i think that the Trump Administration has right now is all we want from nancy pelosi, all we are asking for is bringing our usmexico canada trade agreement to a vote and i believe it gets a vote it will pass the house and the senate will be ratified and nd that puts more pressure on china to make a deal. You think there are differences between old nafta and new nafta . Guest not really, theres modernizations, theres things in the new nafta i th dont like but on balance i think its an updated version. How old was that, 25 years ago . Did need to be modernized but not substantially different. A little bit improved but all the more reason to get it done and it helps canada, helped mexico, helped the us and helps our strategic position in the world. Host a call from elizabeth in north carolina, republican line. Caller thank you for taking the call. First of all i want to thank the Heritage Foundation for do. Their hard work that they the Heritage Foundation is an excellent, excellent organization. We are proud of what we do and i hope people go to heritage. Org and see the research we do. I totally support trump and his efforts. I totally agree with you, totally agree because this man is the best answer for our economy. I mean, compare that with what the democrats are offering. Democrats are offering socialism. They want Big Government and the high taxes to pay for it. And trump axhas revolutionized this economy. He is the best person, the best person to keep this economy going. We have more jobs than people can fill them. I certainly agree with a lot of that. I think that donald trump is far from perfect. One thing people always ask me, what trumponomics about and what is trumponomics so i think its bringing a kind of businessmans perspective to the white house and i think thats made of big difference. Politicians in the past who been in the white house havent known a lot about business, how to make a profit, how to meet a payroll, how to grow a business and trump understands that and i think that kind of probusiness attitude, by the way putting America First means putting American Workers first and i had of the countrys interest so it worked out well and i agree with this color that our goal was to get the economy , to get the full employment which we done, get wages up which is happening. I did a report showing the average family over the last 2 and a half years as Trump Took Office as 4000 increase in income. And another 1400 in tax cuts so the average family is 5000 richer today than they were when obama left office. Thats a lot of increase in income in 2 and a half years and it puts the lie to this idea that Elizabeth Warren and joe biden and Bernie Sanders say oh, only the rich have benefited from the trump policy. Thats just factually untrue. Host cleveland ohio, democrats line. Caller i want to say i do agree with the president on one thing and thats that we need to go ahead and protect american jobs area i just dont think hes doing a very good job of it. My main issue with the us mca is essentially its nafta 2. 0. Its not doing enough to protect American Workers and ive got a family and any time i drive out there it breaks my heart seeing the lordstown plant broken down. Thats something the president said it was going out there and he was going to go ahead and help those people keep their jobs and those jobs are gone, theyre not coming back. I wish he would go ahead and american jobs because i dont think hes fighting hard enough. Hes got a good point, one thing i would say is some of the jobs in these old steel jobs and manufacturing jobs, through technology and through trade, some of those jobs are probably just going to go away but the fact is that we have steel mills and you mentioned youngstown ohio, steel mills are pretty open in youngstown and the reason thats happening, this is animportant point because i listen to the democrats talking about climate change. Ey i think it was Bernie Sanders and a couple of others said that damn fracking, thats the stupidest idea ive ever heard. Fracking is totally rejuvenated the ohio and pennsylvania and west d virginia economies, were producing more natural gas asbecause of fracking, fracking is a technology that opened up the eus the massive amounts of oil and natural gas, we dont have to import the stuff anymore and its like the cure for cancer in terms of energy and the idea that democrats want to abolish that, you talk about preserving jobs, you get rid of our oil and gas and coal production, youre talking putting millions of middleclass bluecollar t workers out of their jobs so its a really bad idea. This is steve green off of twitter asking you a question about the Rising National debt adding its easy to log one side of the equation but we are in serious debt, borrowing money and lowering taxes at the same time. Can our gdp pay off all this debt . Thats a tough question because it is the one black mark of both parties. I have to say this, im a republican but republicans, theres maybe even more this time in terms of his big exploding 1 trillion National Debt and i cant defend it but i would say this, its not a tax problem. If you look at what rehappened in 2018 and 19 because weve almost finished the fiscal year and i think it ends october 1 , so weve got the data and for those two years. In 2018 and 2019 the United States federal treasury took in more federal tax treasuries than any single year in american history. Its not a tax problem, its an overspending problem. Democrats want to spend more money on social programs, republicans want to spend more money on the military. They just keep increasing and i agree with this gentleman, weve got to impose some spending discipline. A few of these democrats are going to spend millions more on this, where are we going to get the money to do that when i see the president and i say i wish youd veto more of these spending bills, i wish youd be tougher on spending, so far the Trump Administration , my good friend russ runs the Budget Office and he has submitted some tough budgets but you get over to congress and then they die there and frankly trump has in my opinion not lobbied hard enough for fiscal discipline. Host when was the last time you talked to the t president about this mark. Guest three months ago. I defend the president i get i think hes done an amazing job on the economy. He says im going to put the biggest priority on getting the Economic Growth rate of. And rising wages and then will deal with the debt problem and i think thats the right order of things but yes, in trumps second term is going to have to do something about this. We cant leave 1 trillion deficit. The one thing thats failing us out right now is as you know pedro is record low Interest Rates. I had a piece in the wall street journal last week or two ago saying that the federal government should do is start issuing 30, 50 year bonds. They do hundred year bonds, locking these low Interest Rates for the next 50 years so that were not susceptible to big increases in rates in the future. Host this is from mike in seattle washington, republican line. We made the chinese rich so they dont need us anymore, they want the president out of office. As much as democrats and you need to have everything made in america that can possibly be made in america area because they dont want a deal. They want to get the president out and stall and stall. Theyve robbed a dozen piggy banks in america and now were educating close to half 1 million chinesestudents. Guest this gentleman is right about all these things and you ask me trump can he get this deal done . Nk theyre going to have to make some major concessions here. We cant live with the current system. Were in an abusive trade relationship with china and it has to stop. The problem is people are saying what beijing is going to do is wait trump out. See if he loses the next election and they hope somebody like joe biden gets in that will be more of a patsywhen it comes to china so thats a problem for trump. Hes got to get this done before the election, the chinese are stalling and thats one reason we dont have that resolution right now. Host democrats line, this is jane. Caller id like to say im so sick and tired of people talking about how great Ronald Reagan was. You will build companies and hire people well, they build factories and have hired people but the problem is they did not hire them here but the Heritage Foundation is spent years talking about how rate they are and they really are not. They are only for the rich people of this country. They could care less about how poor people survive in this country. Host thats fine. We will let the guest respond to that. Guest i obviously disagree with that. I live in the 1970s,97 worse decade since the depression for the economy and Richard Nixon and jerry ford but it was a efsaster and we had i remember this vividly. 15 rate of inflation, 20 mortgage Interest Rates, economy industrial diving people said japan would take over the world and the u. S. Was in the twilight of americas economic supremacy and reagan came in and we cut our tax rates from 7020 and he violated the economy and got moflation out of the system and had an economic boom that lasted almost 20 years. Eightys and 90s and to clintons credit the economy boomed under reagan and moved under clinton and those were prosperous years. We need that again. We need return to those policies. Trump is doing that but reagan won the cold war and i believe he probably belongs on mount rushmore. Host is there a relevant from president obamas effort on the economy . [laughter] guest i think that on balance he did the best he could but it was a meager recovery. I mentioned earlier this has been a long recovery and the problem has its benefits recovery. For middleclass workers there were no gains in income under obama and in fact, in the first three or four years we lost income in job so i will give hif a c grade on the economy. Dont forget people have called and about the debt but lets not forget under barack obama the debt went from ten 20 trillion so he was easily the most fiscally irresponsible preside president. Host this is a viewer of a twitter saint president obama had the federal deficit heading toward but President Trump turn that around. Guest well, you know, the first we showed donald trump the congressional Budget Office sewing the deficit that would going up and upsh every year in the future over the next 20 years. The deficit will not they were excited to go up every year not down so this is a longterm fiscal problem. If the entitlements we have to get growth up and i love this idea the trump has talked about but is not put into effect called the penny program. Cut every Government Spending program by 1 penny, every dollar they get instead of a dollar you give them 99 cents. The next year instead of 99 necents of them 98 cents. If you do that for five years and cut the deficit in half. Its not that hard. By the way, cutting 5 cents out of every dollar the government spends most people watching us understand Government Cut 25 cents out of every dollar they spend. Theres so much waste in washington. Lets do that and have spending discipline. Host lets hear from maryland, democrats line, richard in pikesville. Caller thank you for taking my call. When you are on, go ahead. Caller im glad you got the guy in the representatives from the Heritage Foundation because i believe their policies are out of line, out of whack and dont make sense at all. First of all, donald trump is a russian and did the chinese a favor by having the strattera for because all he has done was deliver russian to the soybean market resilience to the soybean market. Thats why in siberia there burn the forest and in brazil they burned before us. Before 2030 years ago the chinese do not have a market open to the west. The market open to the west and we gave them with 64 split on the advantage going to them because it was the cold war. Sir,. Host can i ask you a question respectfully. I respect your opinion on nothing its boring but lets say you are President Trumps advisor and youll advise them about what to do with china and what would your advice be . Caller my advice to him would be to deal with china would have beenwi to follow suit with what obama set in place by signing an agreement with the tpp agreement [inaudible] and force them to the table to deal with you, not to cut down tariffs and go to war but [inaudible] is not making money but its taxation without representation. Host richard, thank you. Guest a lot of economists are maybe saying we should have stayed in the tpp and people dont realize china was not part of tpp. It was australia, japan, singapore but there is something to this. I thought tpp was a flawed agreement butfl i think theresa lot to what this gentleman has to say. Host bill is in reading, pennsylvania, republican line. Caller good morning. G. Ive been wanting for a long time and youre a nice guy and you know what youre talking about but we all make mistakes in life all these years president s have made a lot of different mistakes. Ll this president is the best president weve ever had in america, as far as im concerned, and is trying to do the best for his country but why wont everyone stop giving him a hard time and except to work with him so he can do the job and finish it . Nobody does [inaudible] by the republicans and im not talkin talking host bill, on matters of bill, on matters of the economy what would you like to dress to our guest specifically . Aly caller you are not there to play games and get her pockets filled for 30 years and do nothing. Host okay, thank you. Guest i love that this gentleman called in. People always ask me why did you get behind donald trump and were 14 republicans running for president but what i liked about donald trump and this has to do with the economy is i went to his early rallies when he was just Getting Started and what i andimich was so interesting a ive been in republican politics for a long time that people who show up at these rallies were not Rich Country Club republicans but bluecollar workers in places like youngstown, ohio and erie, pennsylvania and oshkosh, wisconsin that felt like Neither Party had been attentive to their economic anxieties or needs and trump pushed all the right buttons and saying we can bring these jobs back and put America First and for the most part im not thought aboutut lns having played a small part in putting this together. We did the text cut which has been a spectacular success in terms of getting jobs back and did the deregulation and trump has a great energyof and for the first time in 50 years we are producing more oil and gas them or having to import so we dont have to bring all this money in from send our money to place like saudi arabia and the middle east and thats a great story. I dont always agree with this president and i have skepticism on his trade policies but record is goodavhi t and the economy it they strongly guess trump will be easily reelected but if the economy goes south then we have problems because youll get opinion polls and 40 of people like trump and 40 is like him and 20 in the middle and he has to persuade those people hes doing the right thing for the American Economy and families. Independent line from South Carolina in north charleston, hello. Caller you stole my thunder with the economy may be going south and hurting trump but from a politically strategic standpoint i might have waited until after 2020 anyway, the economy is doing well and i dont know why its a hard concept for people to grasp that when you offer incentives to companies and stimulus that gives American People our economy depends on people spending money. We like to buy stuff. We like to make inventory disappear off the shelves of walmart and other stores and when we do we know that that inventory has to be replaced and it affects other people and their jobs and they, in turn, buy from their local people and it even affects those factories and other parts of the country down to the guys who changes the lightbulb in the factory. I dont know why that so hard for people to grasp. Weve got to give incentives to peoplele. We want Discretionary Spending it down here and succulent we are a right to work statement bush 41 and the Prime Minister of canada and the president of mexico engineered nafta. I say this because clinton signed it into law. [inaudible] it is coming back now, not the textiles and not the backup but weve got volvo in here now and michelin and the biggest bmw plant in the world weve got amazon prime hube az m telling you it works. If people would equip quit griping about making the rich richer but its about giving jobs to people that goes to real estate taxes host i apologize after stopping there because are running out of time but mr. Moore, goahead. Guest im couple points i wanted to comment on. The reason you know the economy is strong right now, especially for families, is look at how they are spending. People spending money i was looking at the profits for lowes and home depot and some of the major target those companies are recording record sales of people have more money in the pocketbooksks and what ae they doing . They go out and spend and thats how the economy i mentioned earlier i wanted businesses to be spending thats where im more nervous because the last point i would make is people talk about bluecollar jobs. I remember one month or two before the electione in 2016 barack obama gave a speech and marked trumpets and how he bring back these manufacturing and construction jobs and ladies and gentlemen in the last year and a half or two and half years since trump has been elected we have created 1. 3 Million Manufacturing and construction jobs. Ive traveled all over this country from portland, oregon to maine and cities in between and every place i go with few exceptions all you see is construction cranes. Im looking at the window in washington dc the people are building things again and making things again. Its a great picture and i hope it continues because i think if it does we can continue to see wage for American Workers and its a good picture, not a great picture but pretty strong picture for the American Economy. Host steve moore of the Heritage Foundation, thank you for your time. This is a life picture on capitol hill for the this afternoon we are waiting to hear from the Senate Leaders as they finish their party caucus lunches. Typically Senate Leaders come to the spot in the capital after their meeting to answer reporters questions. Senate is about to travel in a couple minutes at 2 15 eastern so we may or may not hear from Senate Leaders. This is life coverage here on the semantic. [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] it will be a moment or two before we get the comments from senators as they had to the chamber, the senate is in session. Life coverage here on cspan2. Vote