Newsmax Finance Insider and renowned economist Larry Kudlow said despite Donald Trump making “a major blunder” over election results in last night’s debate, he “missed a really good opportunity” to channel Ronald Reagan and impress voters by challenging Hillary Clinton on economic specifics such as corporate tax reform.
“I think Trump had a pretty good debate overall. In my view he had a lot of good things to say,” Kudlow told CNBC.
But Kudlow said at one point, Trump drifted off topic and "missed a really good opportunity" to expose weakness on many aspects of Hillary Clinton's economic strategy.
"When Mrs. Clinton says 'I'm going to raise your taxes because we have to spend here and spend there,' he should have said like Reagan, ‘There you go again. There you go again.’" Kudlow said, citing the phrase spoken during the 1980 United States presidential election debate by Reagan to his Democratic opponent, incumbent President Jimmy Carter.
"But he just didn't get that out,” Kudlow said of Trump.
“Here's what really bothered me. The most important issue in the campaign: The economy is number one. Jobs and wages. Mr. Trump got out some good stuff,” said Kudlow, an informal advisor to the Trump campaign and a CNBC senior contributor. However, Trump “should have talked about his business tax cuts. She doesn't have a corporate tax reform. We need that desperately,” 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.
Trump also “didn't go into that how companies will stay here and not leave. Money will come back on shore to be invested,” said Kudlow. “And then he veered off. He started talking about South Korea and Germany and Japan. And basically seemed to blame our economic ills on Nafta,” Kudlow said of Trump
"This is my disappointment, his missed opportunity. He's putting more money in your pockets. She's taking money out of your pockets," Kudlow said of both candidates' economic blueprints.
“Trump said ‘I'm a tax cutter.’ Trump said, ‘By the way, one of the solutions to the debt problem is grow the economy at 4%, 5%, or 6%,’” Kudlow said. “But he didn't ‘sell’ it, Kudlow said of Trump's overall economic plan, which he helped draft.
"He's in the tradition of JFK and Ronald Reagan, whose tax cuts worked. She's way off on the left wing of the Democratic Party,” Kudlow said.
Larry Kudlow is a senior contributor at CNBC. His new book is “JFK and the Reagan Revolution: A Secret History of American Prosperity,” written with Brian Domitrovic.
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
(Newsmax wire services contributed to this report).
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