Republicans are making tax reform needlessly difficult – and should focus a new bill on jobs and the economy, four economic policy advisers to Donald Trump during his presidential campaign are urging.
In a commentary for The New York Times, Steve Forbes, Larry Kudlow, Arthur Laffer, and Stephen Moore argue one "sure lesson" from the GOP healthcare blowup is "the old admonition 'Keep it simple, stupid.'"
"The primary goal of Mr. Trump's first tax bill should be to fix the federal corporate and small-business tax system, which has made America increasingly uncompetitive in global markets and has reduced jobs and wages here at home," they advise.
To do that, they wrote, Republicans should cut the federal corporate and small-business highest tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percent; let businesses deduct the full cost of their capital purchases; and impose a low tax on the repatriation of foreign profits brought back to the United States – and use the money to create an infrastructure fund.
They also argue the so-called border-adjustment tax proposal ought to be tossed.
"The best way to bring jobs back to America is to simply lower tax rates now, while rolling back anti-jobs regulations, such as rules that inhibit American energy production," they wrote.
Fixing the individual income tax system should wait until 2018, they added.
"Jobs and the economy are the top priority to voters," they wrote.
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