Trump had a pretty awful couple of weeks on the campaign trail. It all started with an unforced error as Trump engaged in prolonged twitter war with Khizr Khan, a Gold Star Father, that spiraled out of control. The media propaganda machine seized on the opportunity to boost Hillary’s post-convention bounce and by the time the dust settled Trump had to fight back rumors he was planning to drop out of the race. The whole thing was really confusing for Reuters as polling data showed Trump going from a 1 point lead to down massively and then back to within striking distance within a matter of days (see our post “Reuters Baffled As Clinton’s Lead Over Trump Suddenly Evaporates“)…poor guys…it’s really hard to rig polling data in a way that consistently supports your candidate when the opposing campaign is so volatile.
That said, Trump is regrouping this week with a speech in Detroit at the Detroit Economic Club that will focus on financial reform. Among other things, Trump will call for a moratorium on new financial regulations until the economy demonstrates “significant growth.” According to Bloomberg, Trump’s financial plan will call for the following:
- Repeal of the estate tax, also known as the “death tax,” which taxes estates larger than $5.45 million for individuals and $10.9 million for couples at 40%
- Reduction of the corporate tax rate to 15% from 35%
- Elimination of special tax treatment for carried interest paid to PE and Hedge Fund managers (carried interest currently taxed at dividend rates but Trump policy would tax it as ordinary income)
- Elimination of the cap on childcare costs deductions (Hillary proposal caps deduction at 10% of income)
According to comments made to Bloomberg, Trump will focus on the burden of the regulations imposed by the Obama campaign:
Trump will take direct aim at the Clintons and Obama, pointing to Detroit as an example of their failed economic policies. He will argue that their “record-breaking pace of new regulations, tax increases, restrictions on private-energy production and one-sided trade deals” have hurt Detroit and other cities, according to a portion of the remarks shared with Bloomberg Politics.
He will call Obama’s Clinton-backed regulations a “lead-weight on the economy, an anchor dragging us down.” And he will say that Americans “need to hit the pause buttons on these regulations so our businesses can reinvest in the economy.”
“She’s the candidate of the past and ours is the campaign of the future,” Trump plans to say in the speech, according to the portion shared with Bloomberg. “Every policy that has failed Detroit has been fully supported by Hillary Clinton. The one common feature of every Hillary Clinton idea is that it punishes you from working and doing business in the United States.”
Republican donors, including many that supported former Presidential candidate Ted Cruz, are eagerly anticipating Trump’s speech.
Texas investor Doug Deason, who backed Ted Cruz for president in the primary, said he’d like to see Trump “lay out a plan to lower corporate taxes, eliminate federal bureaucracy costs by 10 percent or more, end all corporate welfare programs, convert welfare programs to work programs and dramatically reduce all of the silly federal rules the current administration has put in place.”
Several donors said they’re craving specifics on how to repatriate profits trapped overseas, what exactly Trump would do with infrastructure and how he’d pay for it, and how he’d encourage capital investments in plants and equipment.
“I would hope that he would cover the full range of economic targets from corporate and personal income tax to trade policy to regulatory reform and energy strategy,” said Wilbur Ross, chief strategy officer at WL Ross & Co., which has invested more than $11 billion in distressed companies, including Bethlehem Steel, since its founding in 2000.
It’s no coincidence that the speech will be held in Detroit, one of the worst performing cities in the country which has been devastated by the outsourcing of automotive manufacturing jobs to lower cost countries like Mexico and China. We’re sure Trump will seize on every opportunity available to saddle Clinton with the blame for those job losses given her support of the NAFTA free trade agreement.
For Trump, the real test will be whether he can stay on message. If so, it would be a yuuuuuge change for the campaign and one which we fear would require more changes of polling methodologies at Reuters…
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