Columnist.
In the modern history of American politics, has there ever been a bigger hypocrite than Hillary Clinton? Her 30 years in politics have taught us clearly that Clinton lives by one set of rules and wants to impose different rules for everyone else. She constantly accuses Donald Trump of transgressions of which she herself is guilty. She sermonizes about a code of conduct that she, her husband and her operatives routinely violate. We have learned from her emails that she has two personas: She tells voters one thing and her donors the opposite.
I have been asked a dozen times by news reporters over the last week: Do you still support Donald Trump? The elites at The New York Times, Washington Post and CNN would love to be able to add me and dozens more to the list of Republicans who have publicly denounced the Trump-Pence ticket. What I don't get about the prominent Republican defectors who have declared they are now for Hillary Clinton is why they get this weird high off being praised by the leftists in the media. Is it really that important to them to be back on the invite list for the next press club dinner? Yes, I am offended by many of Trump's actions and words. Who isn't? But who isn't offended and frightened more by every word uttered and action taken by Hillary Clinton? I'd vote for my pet frog over Clinton, but alas, he's not running.
Hillary Clinton keeps bashing the Trump tax plan as "trumped-up trickle-down economics." This class-warfare card has become the standard and tired response to every Republican tax reform plan for 30 years. No wonder we haven't cleaned out the stables of the tax code since the Reagan era. Democrats have no interest in doing so. Clinton's claim is that the plan will blow a hole in the debt (which is rich coming from someone who worked for an administration that nearly doubled the debt in eight years) and that the benefits all go to the rich. She also says it will cost jobs and could even cause a recession. I worked on devising the Trump tax plan with economists Larry Kudlow, Sam Clovis and others, so I know a little bit about the costs and the benefits.
Clinton's "revised tax plan would raise the estate tax to as high as 65 percent."
Someone might want to inform Hillary Clinton that greed and envy are two of the seven deadly sins. Her new revised tax plan? would raise the estate tax to as high as 65 percent — up from 40 percent, where it is today. She would also apply this hated death tax to as many as twice as many estates. It's one of her dumbest ideas yet — and that is saying a lot. It won't raise any revenue to speak of. It's a bow-tied gift to estate-tax lawyers and accountants. Many studies have found that the cost to the economy of taxing a lifetime of savings more than outweighs any benefits. It actually could end up costing the Treasury money by reducing investment in family businesses, which are a major engine of growth for our economy.
Last week, while touting the new Census report on income and poverty in America, Barack Obama took credit for $2 a gallon gasoline, and immodestly shouted to his crowd of supporters: "Thank you, Obama." I don't want to sound ungrateful, but given that for eight years your administration has done everything to decapitate the oil and gas industry that gave us low gas prices, sorry: No thanks are in order, Mr. President. Even more amazing was Obama's victory lap on the income numbers. Yes, incomes for middle-class families rose by an impressive 5 percent in 2015. And poverty fell. Thank goodness. It's about time. But the Census report was anything but cause for celebration. It is a stinging indictment of the policy results of both the George W. Bush and the Obama legacies. They both miserably failed and are equally culpable for the sad state of the American family's finances today.
What makes America an economically ingenious place is the competitive federalism model set forth by our Founding Fathers. They established our nation as the world's largest ever free trade zone, in which 50 states use varying economic and fiscal policies to compete for jobs and people. And boy, have liberals come to hate that model. Why? Because it puts their policies of tax, spend, regulate and restrict on trial every day. We can see with our own eyes the stampede flowing out of liberal blue states and into conservative red states.
It was in 1916 — 100 years ago this year — that America made a big, big mistake, one that has done significant damage to our economy and the fairness of our tax system for an entire century. We are talking about the estate tax, more popularly known as the death tax. The tax is in the news again because Hillary Clinton wants to raise the tax at death from 40 percent to 45 percent and impose it on far more small family-owned businesses, farms and ranches. Donald Trump wants to eliminate this unfair tax, because a lifetime of paying income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, dividend taxes, capital gains taxes, payroll taxes and employee taxes should be enough. Almost every small-business association in America agrees and has endorsed the Trump plan.
"Have you noticed that Hillary Clinton wants to talk about the economy about as much as she wants to talk about Monica Lewinsky or Benghazi?"
Have you noticed that Hillary Clinton wants to talk about the economy about as much as she wants to talk about Monica Lewinsky or Benghazi? Here's why: The economy is lousy. Feeble. Barack Obama's own numbers prove it. We got revised GDP numbers from the Commerce Department on Friday and the economy is actually getting worse. The rate of economic growth was slightly less than 1 percent for the first six months of 2016. No wonder almost half of Americans think we are still in a recession. They are personally in recession.
I asked a successful businessman the other day what he thought about Donald Trump. He turned his thumb down. Wow. "Are you going to vote for Hillary?" I asked with trepidation. "Of course not," he replied, almost insulted by the question. "I understand the concept of a binary decision." I got a similar response when I asked oil magnate T. Boone Pickens whether he would vote for Trump. He looked at me with a quizzical expression and replied: "Well, who else is there to vote for?" Right. Who else is there? Yet, amazingly, a caucus of lifelong Republican politicos in Washington are announcing to the world with defiance and self-righteousness that they will vote for Hillary Clinton.
Poor Hillary Clinton. She's trying so fervently to come up with at least one new and inspiring idea to jump-start a moribund economy and help the financially stressed middle class. But the left's idea cupboard is empty. They have nothing to offer except: tax; spend; spin; hit the button again. So in her speech on Thursday on the economy, she proposed last week's leftover cold porridge. And it doesn't taste any better today than when President Obama first served it up. Clinton touted her proposed jobs program, which she has said she will launch "in (her) first 100 days (in office)." Sure. But her former boss Barack Obama has had not 100 but close to 3,000 days to come up with a jobs program. Where are the jobs? Where are the pay raises? Where is the growth?
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump don't agree on much of anything, but there is one area where they have a meeting of the minds: they both want to spend way more on public works programs. Hillary ?Clinton says that her primary jobs stimulus will be a massive $275 billion-plus infrastructure spending binge. Donald Trump one-upped Clinton last week promising to spend twice that amount. He says the money is necessary because of crumbling roads and "bridges that are falling down." It's a rare source of agreement, so wouldn't you know it: they're both wrong.
Two recent news stories highlight how pernicious the welfare state has become in America today. The first was an announcement by the feds that food stamps can be used to have groceries delivered right to a recipient's door. Service with a smile. The Obama administration says it is too much of a hardship for those on welfare to actually travel to the grocery. What's next, cooking the meal for them? If only the DMV would do home deliveries for driver's licenses.
This week, the Democrats officially appoint the battered Hillary Clinton to be torchbearer of the party. She has slouched to the finish line. She is tired and the country is tired of her. Sorry, Democrats, no do-overs. You're stuck with her. But it isn't just Clinton who is out of touch and in tragic decline. It's the whole Democratic Party. My friends at the American Enterprise Institute reported last week that the Democratic platform is silent on economic growth. Maybe that is because across the country during the past eight years of Obamanomics, economic growth has been silent.
The worst-kept secret in Washington, D.C., is that Congress will once again fail to do its most basic constitutional job and pass legislation to fund the federal government beyond the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30. Although both party's leaders are slow to admit it, the annual fight over $4 trillion of federal funding is heading down a now-familiar path. Lawmakers will lurch toward a government shutdown, pass a temporary continuing resolution to keep federal doors open, and eventually agree to a last-minute omnibus funding bill — a massive trillion-dollar-plus package riddled with waste and cobbled together without public scrutiny or congressional debate.
Liberal attorneys general from 17 states have put a big red bulls-eye on the chest of big oil. Their bizarre claim is that, for years, energy companies fraudulently covered up their knowledge that greenhouse gases from fossil fuels cause catastrophic climate change. The most recent chapter of this witch hunt is a remarkable subpoena filed by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, which would require Exxon Mobil Corp. to turn over 40 years of internal company documents. It also demands that Exxon Mobil produce all its internal communication with conservative-leaning think tanks. This is nothing more than an old-fashioned, political mob shakedown of a deep-pocketed industry for money. The attorneys general are hoping for a repeat of the multibillion-dollar tobacco company settlement in the 1990s. The big and obvious difference here is that tobacco companies sell a product that is dangerous to one's health. The oil and gas companies sell energy that makes all modern industrial life possible.
Every president since Richard Nixon has promised to make America energy independent, but we still import 9 million barrels of oil a day, much of it coming from the Middle East and OPEC. Now, for the first time in a half-century — thanks to the shale oil and gas revolution — true American energy independence is not just a pipe dream. It's easily achievable — if the next president takes the right steps. Such an energy strategy means we could stop draining our economy of about $200 billion a year, which we could really use here at home. But this isn't just about the economy. We know from intelligence reports that as many as 500 million petro-dollars find their way into the coffers of terrorist networks, including ISIS.
What an amazing speech in Columbus, Ohio, last week by Hillary Clinton. She started off: "People are working harder and longer just to keep their heads above water. And to deal with the costs, the everyday costs, the costs of basics like childcare and prescription drugs that are too high. College is getting more expensive every day. And wages are still too low and inequality is too great. Good jobs in many parts of this country are still too hard to come by."
President Barack Obama needs a reality check. Earlier this month in Indiana, he accused his critics of ignoring the "facts" and purporting "myths" about his economic record. But if Republicans are truly ignoring the facts, Obama should consider it a blessing. A quick look at the facts will show that Obama's economic performance has been weak — even by his own standards. In its budget for the fiscal year 2010, the Obama administration estimated that real gross domestic product would decline in 2009 by 2.8 percent that year and then increase by 2 percent in 2010. Furthermore, the White House forecast that by 2011 its massive stimulus program would start paying off, with growth accelerating to 3.8 percent that year and then soaring above 4 percent from 2012 to 2014.
