Newsmax Finance Insider and renowned economist Larry Kudlow says Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s economic strategy, should she win the White House, is doomed to fail.
“Hillary's proposal is across-the-board tax hikes,” Kudlow told CNBC.
“If you want to tax your way into prosperity, that theory fails every single time," said Kudlow, who under President Ronald Reagan was the associate director for economics and planning, Office of Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President, where he was engaged in the development of the administration’s economic and budget policy.
“She wants to raise taxes on businesses, on individuals, on capital gains. She wants to raise taxes on inheritance. This is double and triple taxation of investments,” said Kudlow, author of "JFK and the Reagan Revolution: A Secret History of American Prosperity."
“She is raising taxes across the board. I wish [Republican presidential nominee Donald] Trump had made this clearer last night,” Kudlow said of the first presidential debate.
To be sure, Clinton recently proposed raising taxes on inherited property to 65 percent for the largest estates as she bolstered plans for tax hikes on the wealthiest Americans, Reuters reported.
Known by conservative opponents as the "death tax," the estate tax, levied on property such as cash, real estate, stock or other assets transferred from deceased persons to heirs, currently is imposed only on inherited assets worth $5.45 million or more for an individual.
Trump, a wealthy real estate developer, wants to eliminate the estate tax.
Clinton's plan, posted on her campaign's website, would raise the estate tax from the current 40 percent to 45 percent, the rate that existed in 2009. But the biggest estates would face rates of up to 65 percent for property valued at more than $500 million for a single person or $1 billion per couple, under her proposal, an update of an earlier plan.
Clinton's proposed top rate of 65 percent would be the highest estate tax since the 1980s, and is in line with a proposal made during the Democratic primaries by her former rival for the party's presidential nomination, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.
Her campaign said the boosted estate tax and a change in the rules to tax capital gains associated with inherited assets would help pay for other proposals to benefit middle-class people, such as expanding a tax credit for working parents. Clinton's campaign said the plan would hit only the wealthiest people.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group focused on budget issues, said Clinton's new tax proposals including the estate tax changes, taxes on capital gains of inherited assets and other provisions would together raise $260 billion in revenue over a decade.
Meanwhile, a new study authored by investor Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro, a top economist at the University of California claims that Trump's economic plan will "significantly increase America's real GDP growth rate" – resulting in trillions of dollars of additional revenues.
“When evaluated as a single integrated whole, the Trump plan is revenue neutral and fiscally conservative," Ross and Navarro write in the study.
Ross, one of the nation’s most respected private equity investors, and Navarro serve as senior economic policy advisers for Trump’s campaign.
"It grows the economy much faster than Hillary Clinton's plan to raise taxes, increase regulation, stifle our energy sector, and perpetuate chronic trade deficits," the study finds.
Meanwhile, Trump’s economic plan “proposes tax cuts, reduced regulation, lower energy costs, and eliminating America’s chronic trade deficit,” Ross-Navarro say.
The authors conclude that “Hillary Clinton’s economic plan will inhibit growth.”
Clinton “proposes higher taxes, more regulation, and further restrictions on fossil fuels that will significantly raise energy and electricity costs,” the report states. “Clinton will also perpetuate trade policies and trade deals she has helped put in place that have led to chronic trade deficits and reduced economic growth.”
(Newsmax wire service Reuters contributed to this report).
Larry Kudlow is a senior contributor at CNBC. To read more of his work, CLICK HERE NOW. To find out more about Larry Kudlow and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com
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