ATR President Grover Norquist joined Jacqueline Alemany on Washington Post Live to discuss President Biden’s proposed tax increases and his more than $4 trillion infrastructure plan.
During this conversation, Norquist discussed the success of lowering the corporate income tax rate in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which led to the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years, immense economic growth, and a substantial rise in the median income.
Norquist explains how lowering the corporate income tax rate helped lower the unemployment rate to historic levels:
“When the Republicans cut taxes, we took the highest corporate rate in the world, 35 percent, all the rest of the world had lowered their corporate rates below 35 percent and they were getting stronger economic growth as a result. We were still at 35 percent, 10 points higher than communist China. What happened when the Republicans cut individual rates, rates on small business, rates on corporations?
We went to the lowest unemployment in 50 years, 3.5 percent; this is 2019. We went to the lowest poverty rate in 50 years. Everything that the liberals said they want to do with big spending programs was actually achieved. The bottom quarter earners got larger raises than the top quarter earners in the economy.”
Norquist explains how the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act spurred economic growth and raised wages:
“So, for everything from equity to jobs to creation, compare it to the rest of the world. The U.S. growth in 2018 was 2.9 percent; that was twice Germany’s, which was 1.5 percent; more than twice Britain’s.
We were not only out-competing–in one year, one year alone, 2019, the median income, which is the median income, family income, half people make less, half the people make more. Bill Gates making a billion dollars doesn’t move the median. The median income, in that one year alone, increased 6.8 percent, or $4,440; $4,000 raise for the median income. That means tens of millions of Americans saw their income increase by those amounts. That compares to, oh, during the Obama years, in eight years, Obama increased it 5 percent. In one year, the lower rates in 2019 increased the median income 6.8 percent, or over $4,000. By the way, almost exactly what the Republican economists in the White House predicted would happen if you cut taxes and more capital, more investment per worker flooded in.”
Norquist explains how Biden’s tax hikes will harm Americans’ 401(k) accounts:
“But think about the owners of capital, if you have a 401(k), your 401(k) will be worth less because it’s a higher corporate rate, and 53 percent of American households have a 401(k); 53 percent of Americans do not make more than $400,000 a year. Biden is going right for the middle class, right for the upper middle-class and that 400,000 is a dead letter and never amount to anything, and certainly doesn’t mean anything now.”
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