Economists: Tax Reform ‘Imperative’

‘The Country Must Not Miss This Opportunity’

‘This Plan Is Pro-Growth … Pro-Work,’ & ‘Would Boost Wage Growth’
DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN, Former CBO Director: “[R]emember that doing nothing is dangerous to America. The fact that the economy is stuck in low gear has visited distress on large swaths of the labor market and household sector. Headquarters of U.S. firms continue to migrate overseas to competitor companies. Trillions of dollars of global earnings are locked out of the United States by the tax code. Reform is an imperative.” (Douglas Holtz-Eakin, “The Tax Plan Cometh,” American Action Forum’s The Daily Dish, 9/27/2017)

·         HOLTZ-EAKIN: “… the focus should be on the implications for growth. The impact of any specific tax provision pales in comparison to the improvement in middle-class livelihoods that would come from better economic growth, productivity growth, and real wage growth.” (Douglas Holtz-Eakin, “The Tax Plan Cometh,” American Action Forum’s The Daily Dish, 9/27/2017)

LAWRENCE LINDSEY, Former Federal Reserve Governor: “This is an important piece of legislation to pass. The country must not miss this opportunity.” (Lawrence B. Lindsey, Op-Ed, “Tax Reform Will Give Workers a Raise,” The Wall Street Journal, 10/10/2017)

·         LINDSEY: “The tax-reform package now working its way through Congress is well-designed and far-reaching. It aims to address the reasons that the current economic recovery has been the most anemic on record. If it becomes law, we can expect economic growth to accelerate …” (Lawrence B. Lindsey, Op-Ed, “Tax Reform Will Give Workers a Raise,” The Wall Street Journal, 10/10/2017)

·         LINDSEY: “A rise in real wages would dramatically improve America’s society as well as its economy. It would lead to the first sustained decline in income inequality in more than 40 years. The American economy will finally start working in the interest of the great middle class and not simply those at the top.” (Lawrence B. Lindsey, Op-Ed, “Tax Reform Will Give Workers a Raise,” The Wall Street Journal, 10/10/2017)

GLENN HUBBARD, Columbia Business School Dean: “The principal goal of tax reform is to promote economic well-being—investment, productivity and wages—and debate should center on improvement in well-being.” (Glenn Hubbard, Op-Ed, “Why America Needs Tax Reform,” The Wall Street Journal, 10/05/2017)

·         HUBBARD: “Does real tax reform with enhanced and broader prosperity trump the current structurally weaker economy with a broken tax code? The answer is yes.” (Glenn Hubbard, Op-Ed, “Why America Needs Tax Reform,” The Wall Street Journal, 10/05/2017)

KEVIN HASSETT, Council Of Economic Advisers Chairman: “This plan is pro-growth. On the individual side it is pro-work. When you get more of an economic input like work, you get more economic output – and you get more economic growth. And on the corporate side, companies will no longer be incentivized to offshore, and what they save in taxes should help raise corporate investment and wages.” (Kevin Hassett’s Remarks on Tax Reform, Tax Foundation, 10/05/2017)

·         HASSETT: “[W]e know from several studies that high corporate tax rates serve to depress the wages of workers over the long-run, through a combination of disincentives to bring profits home to invest, and a reduced impetus for domestic investment in general. Those effects are felt across the income distribution, resulting in lower wages for higher- and lower-skilled workers alike. For the median household in the U.S., a top corporate marginal rate cut from 35 to 20 percent would boost wage growth almost four-fold -- from the current 0.6 percent per year to as much as 2 percent, providing up to $7000 of additional income. It’s time for a bipartisan consensus to use tax policy to fix wage growth.” (Kevin Hassett’s Remarks on Tax Reform, Tax Foundation, 10/05/2017)

SCOTT HODGE, Tax Foundation President: “What we want to do is have policies that lift wages, lift productivity, and ultimately lift after-tax incomes—real living standards. And the kind of tax reform that we’ve outlined here, with a lower corporate tax rate and full expensing will do that. And I think that’s the strongest approach to making people better off.” (U.S. Senate Finance Committee Hearing, 9/19/2017)

ITAI GRINBERG, Georgetown University Law Professor: “There’s now a widespread consensus the United States needs to abandon its aberrant worldwide corporate tax system, lower the rate, and go territorial…. [T]his general consensus was even reflected, to some extent, in the final proposals of the Obama administration.” (U.S. Senate Finance Committee, Press Release 10/03/2017)

·         GRINBERG: “Our corporate tax rate and international tax rules are just totally out of line with international norms. Continuing to lag behind would cost us an opportunity and employment for our kids.” (U.S. Senate Finance Committee, Press Release 10/03/2017)

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