White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow vowed that President Donald Trump will continue to push the economy along a path of strong growth in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We will rebuild prosperity. We built it once, we will rebuild it again,” the veteran financial guru and former Ronald Reagan adviser said on CNBC.
Kudlow was also asked to comment on a Wall Street Journal report that said Trump would double down on tax cuts in second term.
“Regarding his second-term policies to grow the economy, he's asked us to take a look at a new middle-class income-tax cut. He's keen on a payroll-tax deferral and would like to see complete forgiveness for that deferral. He's looking at capital-gains tax reforms,” said Kudlow, who worked as Reagan’s budget deputy between 1981 and 1985.
“Essentially, I think he'd like to make all the tax cuts permanent from the 2017 go-around,” said Kudlow, who served as the Trump campaign's senior economic adviser.
Kudlow said the 2017 tax cuts stimulated the economy and drove down unemployment.
“We've just seen a tremendous pickup in real wages, that is real family incomes, a record pickup, five times the rate of increase of the prior eight years and really the first raise since the year 2000 for the middle class and lower wage folks,” Kudlow said.
“The president will reiterate these growth policies that will get us back to prosperity and recover from the pandemic,” Kudlow predicted of the first presidential debate.
To be sure, Americans’ household wealth rebounded last quarter to a record high as the stock market quickly recovered from a pandemic-induced plunge in March. Yet the gains flowed mainly to the most affluent households even as tens of millions of people endured job losses and shrunken incomes, the Associated Press reported.
The Federal Reserve said last week that American households’ net worth jumped nearly 7% in the April-June quarter to $119 trillion.
“On the other hand, you had the other side, they raised taxes and regulations. The slowest recovery on record, left us very weak in 2016,” he said. “And apparently according to Mr. Biden's campaign, they're going to do it again. More taxes and more regulations I don't understand that. It doesn't make any sense,” Kudlow said.
"Let's face it, the economy is performing now—with the increase of 11 million jobs, 14 million household jobs, a major drop in unemployment to 8.2 percent, nobody expected single digits until early next year. Continuing unemployment claims, initial claims, all trending lower, and we're spending strong. So I think we're off to a great start and we're out-performing expectations," Kudlow said.
Meanwhile, consumer confidence rebounded in September by the most in more than 17 years as Americans grew more upbeat about the outlook for the economy and job market, though sentiment remained below pre-pandemic levels, Reuters reported.
The Conference Board’s index increased 15.5 points, the most since April 2003, to 101.8 from August’s upwardly revised 86.3, according to a report issued Tuesday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a reading of 90 in September, and the figure exceeded all estimates.
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