76-11-1
- Main Page \ Reagan Radio Commentaries \ 1977
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Economic Plan[edit]
Transcript[edit]The President has submitted an economic plan to Congress calling for a rebate of fifty dollars to part of the people and a government plan for putting some of the unemployed on the public payroll. There is also a tiny break for business taxwise, which it is claimed will stimulate business and industry to expand, thus providing more jobs. Unfortunately, it is too tiny to do any good. It is not a good plan but still it is better than the amended version turned out by the House Ways and Means Committee. Their version is a concession to the anti-business bias which characterizes them philosophically. Congressman Al Ullman, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, was so determined to do things his way that we now have an economic monstrosity which will solve nothing and mess up much. Mr. Ullman titles his plan the "jobs tax credit program." It has a supposed stimulant to encourage companies to hire new workers. But the A.F.L. - C.I.O. Director of Research calls it, -- QUOTE -- "an administrative nightmare". -- UNQUOTE. The chief economist for the United States Chamber of Commerce is equally vehement in his denunciations -- and those two aren't usually on the same side. An economist for the liberal Brookings Institution says that it, -- QUOTE -- "encourages employers to substitute part-time workers for full-time workers, and low income workers for moderate income workers". -- UNQUOTE. Actually, the plan only reaches the unskilled and low paid, least productive sector. The Assistant Secretary of the Treasury says it ignores 66 percent of the work force. Maybe by the time you hear this, it will be all over. and we'll be trying, once again, the snake oil cures that have failed so many times in the past. A bipartisan group in Congress, which believe the free market can handle inflation and unemployment if government will first get out of the way, has come up with something better, but no one seems to be listening. For four years a young New York Congressman, Jack Kemp, has been urging on his colleagues a tax plan based on common sense, and backed by a record of success. The pattern for his plan comes from the early 1960's and the late President John F. Kennedy. It calls for an across-the-board tax cut to provide incentives for long term economic growth. The Carter plan the the Ullman distortion of that plan will both add to the deficit and therefore to inflation. Kemp's plan calls for each income tax bracket to be lowered about 22 percent. Ullman and his cohorts scream that this would give a break to those with higher earnings. Yes -- the same break given to those with lower earnings. The top tax brackets will be just as much higher than the lower, as they are right now. In 1962-63, Kennedy chose this way to get "the country moving again". He cut the 91 percent bracket down to 70 percent and the 20 percent bottom rate to 14 percent. His Keynesian advisers swore the government would suffer a great loss of revenue. Indeed, they predicted that between 1963 and 1968 tax revenues would decline 2.4 percent in 1963 up to a drop of 24.4 percent in 1968. Or, a six year loss of 89 percent. Instead the stimulus to the economy was so immediate that actual tax revenues totaled a 54 percent increase over the six years. The doom-criers were off in their projections by 143! If we look back in history to the Eisenhower years and earlier, we find this is always the result of reducing taxes across-the-board. Congressman Ullman has chosen failure over a record of certain success. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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