wall street journal assistant editor james freeman is here to weigh in. but first, no end in sight for the migrant crisis overtaking the southern border and no plan in place yet from the white house with the title 42 policy possibly ending any day now. welcome to america reports, i m aishah hasnie in washington. i m rich edson. border patrol agents are taking drastic steps to prepare for the worst. in just a matter of days, built a massive tent in the el paso desert bigger than a football field to handle the expected overflow of migrants if title 42 is lifted. and the new york post puts it welcome mat for illegal immigrants. chad wolf is standing by, but first matt is live at the southern border in eagle pass, texas. matt. rick, so far today our crews have seen four different migrant groups cross into the united states. standard procedure along the southern border. the surge is not slowing down and did not slow down over the christmas holiday weekend. sources
too difficult, too time consuming, resource intensive and too risky to go after multi-national law firms and working for them. what the law firms do, they hire ex-irs agents, they hire those people and then they use them this way. believe me, the large corporations do not make tax evasion mistakes in general, nor do very rich people. they really have great tax lawyers, tax accountants, deferred income specialists, all of these people and they know their taxes better than the irs agents do. the real people you want the irs agents to do is you want the tax system in part voluntary, everyone knows we have to pay taxes, i ve always avowed for a low rate, broad base flat tax. say with jerry brown, 13% flat tax for everyone on the first dollar you earn and the last
about the highest rates i take that as a wonderful, wonderful sign. you know, first place, even if they raise the rates they are never going to get the money. these people know how to get around paying taxes. they hire lawyers, accountants, deferred income specialists. the estimates of 85 billion are just wrong. number two these are the job creators, martha, these are the people who hire all the other people, these are the people who spend the money, these are the people who have secondary revenues affects so you re going to lose huge amounts of money if you raise tax money aress on the highest income earners. if he s willing to be flex flexible on that i am excited and pleased, and i hope he is being sincere and if he is we hope we can get a great deal done that won t hurt the country. martha: charles kraut hammer was basically saying, look, either way you slice it you re not going to look good in some respects.
they prefer, 35 percent say a flat rate with no deductions. at the bottom, you find 12 percent say a national sales tax. art laffer is a former reagan economic adviser. break that down for us. why would the flat rate be so favored by americans, do you believe? well, because everyone knows it works. everyone knows our current system doesn t work. bill: do they? sure they do. if you have a flat single rate, you get what you earn, you pay your tax, you don t have to hire lawyer, accountant, deferred income specialists, that save you huge amounts of money, audits, all this prosecution stuff, all that goes away with a flat tax and everyone pays their fair share throughout the whole process. bill: how would that change the economy, art? it would increase the growth rate of the economy up to chinese growth rate. and i m really serious. when we lowered tax rates in the 80s, in 83, 84, growth rates in the u.s. went way, way up, 7 1/2%
their fair share. they sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing while a bus driver was paying 10% of his salary, that is crazy. martha: let s start with out with arthur laffer who was a former reagan economic adviser and the architect of reaganomics and new every detail of exactly what ronald reagan felt the economy needed to get moving. good morning, good to see you as always. good morning, martha. how are you doing this morning. martha: i m doing quite well. thank you very much. take a look at these two quotes. it does sound as if they are saying the same thing. i think reagan would have been disgusted with president obama s plan and the misuse of his quotes. martha: really? he cut tax rates on the wealthy if you ll remember. in the 86 tax hikes we dropped the highest marginal income tax rate from 35% to 28%. at the same time you close loopholes of course, you d much rather about the wealthy paying taxes than hiring lawyers, accountants, deferred income