Donald Trump gave an optimistic, pro-growth, aspirational speech on the success that could happen in his second term. That is the subject of the riff.
Speaking to the New York Economic Club, former President Trump delivered an optimistic, pro-growth, aspirational speech, and it amounted to a call for American renewal. That's how I saw it.
He began with the promise of low taxes, low regulations, low energy costs, lower interest rates, secure borders, low crime and surging incomes for citizens of every race, religion, color and creed. He ended the speech with a promise to "unleash a new era of safety, prosperity and success for our workers, our families, and our businesses, and I've done it before."
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In the middle, he was highly critical of how Kamala Harris and Joe Biden ruined his economic miracle. Take a listen to this:
TRUMP: "We delivered an economic miracle, which Kamala and Joe turned into an economic disaster, just like they turned the border and indeed the whole world into a catastrophic surrender. Starting on day one, Kamala launched a war on American energy and orchestrated a nation-wrecking border invasion with illegal aliens pouring in from countries all over the world that came in, from countries that nobody ever heard the name of that country, those countries, from their prisons and jails. There is a difference. From mental institutions and insane asylums, as well as record numbers of terrorists, human traffickers and sex traffickers. Numbers that we've never seen before taking place over the last three and a half years. Then Kamala cast the deciding vote on trillions of dollars in wasteful spending, which, together with their terrible energy policies, gave us the worst inflation, perhaps, in the history of our country."
Tough stuff. Now, he pledged to liberate the economy from crippling regulation and perhaps the biggest applause line came from his mention of Elon Musk and a new efficiency commission. Take a listen to this one:
TRUMP: "Fourth, at the suggestion of Elon Musk, who has given me his complete and total endorsement - that's a nice, smart guy, he knows what he's doing. He knows what he's doing. It's very, very much appreciated. I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms. We need to do it. Can't go on the way we are now and Elon, because he's not very busy, has agreed to head that task force. Be interesting if he has the time. Have a good one to do it, but he's agreed to do it. In 2022, fraud and improper payments alone cost taxpayers an estimated hundreds of billions of dollars. As the first order of business, this commission will develop an action plan to totally eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months. This will save trillions of dollars. Trillions! It's massive. For the same service that you have right now. Trillions of dollars is wasted and gone and nobody knows where it went. Further taming inflation and bringing prices way down."
By the way, this is all very reminiscent of Ronald Reagan forty-some odd years ago, who appointed famous businessman Peter Grace to the Grace Commission, which combed the federal government for, in those days, hundreds of billions of dollars, which is a big number. He had people from all over the industry, famous CEOs and executives and so forth and so on, and I think this shows Mr. Trump's bona fides as somebody who wants to restrain federal spending and get rid of waste, fraud, abuse, and, as he says, corruption.
Now, another big applause line came with Mr. Trump's support of cryptocurrencies. Take a listen to this:
TRUMP: "And instead of attacking industries of the future, we will embrace them, including making America the world capital for crypto and Bitcoin."
There you have it – crypto and Bitcoin. Then the applause continued when he talked about making the Trump tax cuts permanent and then outlined his Tax Cuts 2.0. Mr. Trump pledged to reduce the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% for companies that make their products in America.
He blasted Kamala Harris for her $5 trillion tax hike and how it's going to affect small business, corporations, capital gains, even a wealth tax on unrealized capital gains. He seemed to introduce the concept of "smart tariffs," where you pay a tariff if the product comes in from another country, but you get a 15% tax rate plus 100% bonus depreciation expensing if the product comes from America. He calls this a pro-American trade policy, and he argued that everyone in the world would want to produce here in America. Here's how Mr. Trump described it:
TRUMP: "Smart tariffs will not create inflation, they will combat inflation. I had almost no inflation and I had the highest tariffs that anyone’s seen, and they were going a lot higher. Foreign nations will pay us hundreds of billions of dollars, reducing the deficit and driving inflation down to largely reduce our deficit. In my first term, we imposed historic tariffs with no effect on consumer prices or inflation. A combination of fair trade, tax cuts, regulatory cuts and energy abundance will allow us to produce more goods better and cheaper right here in the USA than we've ever done before, and foreign nations will respect us again."
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Now, during the Q & A, Mr. Trump outlined a very strong America First foreign policy. He wants to win back the respect of the world, not for the purpose of starting new wars, but for peace through strength, including a military buildup. That answer was also received with a lot of applause from the group. Purposefully, Mr. Trump ended his tour de force speech on a very upbeat, optimistic note.
Here's the vision: inflation conquered, energy unleashed. Economy set free, sovereignty restored. Citizens will thrive. Growth comes roaring back. America's future brighter than ever and, as he has said before, he did it once, and he can do it again.
This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the Sept. 5, 2024, edition of "Kudlow."
