Tax Increases Are the Democrats’ Answer to Everything

KUDLOW: So inflation is deeply embedded in the economy. I think the Federal Reserve’s gotta raise their target rate at the end of this month by a full percentage point, 100 basis points. I think that’s essential, and I think they’re gonna have to come back in September and probably do another 75 or 100 basis points. Inflation’s out of control! This is no time for a trillion-dollar spending and tax hike package. This would be the worst thing in the world, particularly with massive penalties — a $400 billion tax hike — on small businesses. I mean, whoever thought this brainstorm up really should be — I don’t know — should be banished someplace.

BUCK: And yet that’s the Biden administration move here. That’s what they’re trying to pull off. We just talked to Senator Cruz about it. Welcome back to Clay and Buck, everyone. That was Larry Kudlow, talking about how at a time of real economic peril here, folks, I mean, you’re talking about raising a hundred basis points, 1% Fed rate. That is gonna mean you have less hiring, less investment. It just means the whole economy is going to contract.

You’re going to in a recession. You’re going to have stocks going down, 401(k)s going down, more pressure on city and state budgets, by the way. You got remember, the whole financial system is interconnected and when it comes to things like pensions, when it comes to city budgets for things like paying for health care and all the rest of it, a lot of this is based on investment returns. A lot of this is based on the ability to get a reasonable return on money that is saved and put away.

And when you have the kind of change in the economy that feels like we’re about to hit here where things are going in the negative, it’s gonna get rough, and the most stunning part of this… I can’t say surprising, but it is still like a slap in the face that you know is coming but it still stings, is that with all this… Clay, they were wrong about, “It’s transitory.” They were wrong about inflation’s not gonna be that bad.

They spent $2 trillion, even though Wall Street Journal and many others were saying, “Hey, that’s a lot of money to just throw onto the economy after we’ve already been through a pandemic emergency and spent trillions of dollars during that.” With all of that going on, all of that happening, they still want to do a tax raise, and they want to spend more money right now. That is their answer. It is like an arsonist who, instead of saying, “You know what? I’ll lay off for right now,” is telling everybody, “You know what’s really gonna help the fire? A couple of buckets of gasoline.”

CLAY: Yesterday, there was a report that came out. I think one of our guests mentioned it. I read about it in the Wall Street Journal editorial. Stephen Moore and John Decker looked at looked at the resumes of all of the business-focused employees inside of the Biden White House.

BUCK: Like National Economic Council people, stuff like that?

CLAY: “Sixty-eight top executive branch officials whose work shapes the economy all the way,” I’m reading from the Wall Street Journal, “from President Biden, Treasury secretary Janet Yellen, White House assistants on economic policy, the average business experience of all of these 68 people is 2.4 years.” Let me repeat that because it is such an unbelievable stat. When I read this, my jaw dropped: 68 top White House officials in charge of economic policy in this country, the average one of them has spent 2.4 years.

And they contrasted it, Buck, with the Donald Trump officials. The Trump officials on the economy had spent an average of 13 years working in business in the private economy. Do you think that the people who have spent over six times as many years working in business, might understand the basic precepts of business? This is one of the things we talk about on this show quite a bit.

Democrats in general have almost no officials in positions of prominence that have ever run a business, founded a business, worked at a high level in a business. It almost is nonexistent. And when you have people with no business experience, to Larry Kudlow’s point there, you can sit around and think, “Oh, if we just increased taxes, we’ll solve many of the issues that are out there!” No, no, no, no, no, no.

Increase taxes right now at 9.1% inflation? You could not pick a worse time to be trying to implement that policy, and it’s why Biden’s economic policy has not just failed, it’s failed so miserably that he’s been protected from the worst excesses of his failure by the fact that his own party — and certainly Republicans were united against it. But Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema saved us from 15 or 20% inflation if Biden had gotten to spend the money that he wanted to.

BUCK: I really think that there’s a similarity in the mind-set here to the way Democrats have reacted to covid. They would rather go deeper into misery and pain than admit that they were wrong. I really believe there’s a stubbornness that comes from a vanity that the Democrat elites — that drive so much of their thinking. “Oh, we’re the smart ones, we’re the good ones, we’re the ones that are caring about people,” right? That’s all central to the Democrat conception of self in America today.

And you look at some of these ideas, some of these policies. I mentioned covid. That’s one example. We could talk about the criminal justice, defund the police madness. That’s another example. But when they’re faced with this economic moment here where they could either do something different and try to make things better or they can condition doing what they’ve done that has pushed us to this point.

But at least then they could believe — they could delude themselves into thinking — that it’s not their fault and if they only do more of what they’ve done, it will get better, this is kind of definition of insanity time, Clay. This is people who would rather think they’re right and make all of us suffer that admit they were wrong and start making things better. And I think when we look back at the Biden regime, that will be at the top of the epitaph.

CLAY: I just wonder and hope that Republicans can run out the clock between now and July 31st and keep Democrats from creating a worse economic environment. Because once we get through July, it becomes very difficult to pass any additional legislation, frankly, Buck, for the rest of Joe Biden’s term in office, which there’s still 30 months left. But if we make it through July, effectively the Biden regime’s control of the House, the Senate, and the White House is over because Republicans are gonna take back the House and then there will at least be a check on Joe Biden where nothing will really get passed for two years. So, Biden can’t make things worse. It’s unfortunate that we’ve had to get to this point. But doing absolutely nothing is better than being instructive, which is what Biden administration is doing right now.

BUCK: They also just have a philosophical urge to do more no matter what. It’s never… The best thing that the federal government could do really right now is in every way they can, allow business — allow the American people — to do their business and step out of the way, facilitate, don’t dictate. But instead, I saw yesterday Brian Reece, the economic adviser saying, “What we really need right now is for Congress to pass a bill for more semiconductors to be made here.”

Like, well, what does that look like? How is that going to happen? And what is that going to do, and if Congress would fix things by passing a bill like that, why not have Congress pass a bill that we need to pump more oil out of the ground, right? You start to see central planning is the root fallacy of the authoritarian Democrat mind-set on all economic issues. They think they know better. They think if they do more, they’ll make it better, and to your point, Clay, about the Wall Street Journal looking at these individuals, they don’t know a damn thing!

CLAY: They haven’t ever worked in business. And so why would they be able to solve any business problems? It’s just indefensible how incompetent they are. It really is.

BUCK: Outrageous stuff.