Trump Rolls Out Word Salad Econ Policy To Room Full Of Economists

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Speaking at a Thursday meeting of the Economic Club of New York, Donald Trump made some ambitious promises, vowing to grow the economy by at least 3.5 percent per year, create a staggering 25 million jobs, cut taxes, and slash regulations while preserving entitlement programs.

In the address to the club and a “fireside chat” that followed, Trump didn’t get any pushback on the policy proposals, but offered very few details when he was pressed for specifics.

A policy dubbed Trump’s “Penny Plan,” as detailed in a statement posted online after the speech, includes a directive that there would be “no reductions to defense spending” and “Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid would be exempted” from annual spending cuts.

Trump also described the optimistic target of creating 25 million jobs. As Bloomberg points out, the country has added 7.7 million jobs over the past decade, which puts Trump’s goal at more than three times as many jobs as were created since 2006.

The nominee also promised that the economy would grow 3.5 percent during each year of a Trump administration. But since the last recession ended in 2009, economic growth has remained stable at around 2 percent, according to Bloomberg.

Both individuals and businesses could look forward to tax cuts under Trump’s plan, as he said he would slash business income tax rates to a flat 15 percent. When asked how he settled on that rate, Trump offered up a boilerplate variation of his campaign mantra of making American great again.

Trump didn’t offer up a projected cost for such a tax plan.

Latest Livewire
123
Show Comments

Notable Replies

  1. Avatar for grack grack says:

    Trump’s economic worldview is close to that of Adam Smith’s, i.e. “the tiny, almost invisible hand”.

  2. Donnie needs to once again keep working on the economic word salad of the teleprompter glitch of the trickster King of the muddied stance of the claim of the not lengthy or memorable phone call of the hardening of the softening of the detail dodging of the walk-back of the flip-flop of the sarcasm of the stumble of the tongue of the obfuscation of the abbreviated language of what the loser liberal media poorly covered during the earpiece malfunction of his original, widely documented comments.

  3. A blooming idiot. The emperor has no clothes.

  4. Sen. Clinton is a running a traditional campaign. Trump is a reality show. Nothing of what he says matters. Is it time to go off message and really take him on. I don’t know?

  5. Trump didn’t offer up a projected cost for such a tax plan.

    No shit, Sherlock. Donnie didn’t realize he would be talking to smart people who actually succeed in business without having to resort to multiple bankruptcies.

    If Trump beats Clinton, it could wipe as much as $1 trillion from the US economy

    A win for U.S. presidential candidate Trump could have grave implications for the world’s largest economy, according to Oxford Economics.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

117 more replies

Participants

Avatar for sitzmark Avatar for playitagainrowlf Avatar for littlegirlblue Avatar for marby Avatar for old_curmudgeon Avatar for mjv135 Avatar for commiedearest Avatar for trnc Avatar for bradbennett Avatar for DuckmanGR Avatar for inversion Avatar for mantan Avatar for sniffit Avatar for sickneffintired Avatar for stradivarius50t3 Avatar for captaincommonsense Avatar for khaaannn Avatar for darrtown Avatar for hornblower Avatar for tena Avatar for spencersmom Avatar for tiowally Avatar for j_publicus Avatar for maximus

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: