On Thursday ATR president Grover Norquist was a guest on C-SPAN Washington Journal. Norquist voiced his support for the new Republican tax reform plan.
Norquist explained that the plan will raise take-home pay for Americans and lead to greater job growth. He pointed out that the biggest winners under this proposal are those without jobs:
“Who wins in this tax cut? The guy who spent eight years without a job and is now going to get one. That person goes from zero to 20 or 30 or $40,000 a year when jobs get created. We know that when you reduce the tax burden you get more job creation.”
Norquist spoke about how the U.S. once had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world, but other countries have since lowered their rates. Now, the U.S. has one of the highest tax rates on corporations. The result has been that American companies who do business internationally are more valuable if they are owned by foreign companies.
During the call-in portion of the show, a viewer worried that there were too many lobbyists involved.
Norquist said:
“The best way to keep cockroaches out from under your sink is to not put a cake under your sink because the cockroaches will come. The best way to make the lobbyists go away is to reduce the size and scope of government so that government isn’t handing out other people’s money for free. Then the lobbyists will go get real jobs. The size of government is what breeds lobbyists.”
A Democrat viewer who had moved from New York to Florida also asked how the tax cuts were going to create jobs because he claimed tax cuts don’t create jobs.
Norquist pointed out that the caller had moved from a high tax state to a lower one:
“So, you’ve moved to Florida, a state with no income tax. Period. People leave New York every year, and people move to Florida every year. And the reason is that taxes do matter and jobs are created in states that are lower taxed. What President Trump and the Republicans want to do is do for all America what Florida and Texas have done in their states, which is to reduce taxes to the point where they’re where people want to invest, they’re where people want to move. That’s where the jobs are moving to.”
Norquist finished his interview by pointing out the differences between the recovery under Reagan and the recovery under Obama: “You can compare the Reagan growth and compare it to the Obama numbers. They’re very sad and devastating.”
To view the full interview, click here.