Should Trump take a page from Reagan's playbook?

Original Republican outsider ran on a platform of reforming the U.S. tax code to jumpstart the economy

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NEW CALLS FOR DC TO OVERHAUL MASSIVE TAX CODE TO HELP JUMPSTART THE ECONOMY

Elisabeth MacDonald: The answer is, yes. Trump is saying, make America great again. Paul Ryan saying, prosperity through economic growth. Listen, under Reagan the animal spirits were unleashed on the U.S. economy. Major blue chip companies, Cisco, Dell, created under the Reagan years. Now an app economy with low-wage mixed jobs that pay hardly anything.

John Tamny: I think it certainly diminishes Reagan to mention Trump in the same breath and I think that's the problem. Define Paul Ryan and the Republicans, run as fast as I can from Donald Trump. Here this top negotiator managed the past week to negotiate away his own tax cut in the media. The only pro-growth aspect of his economic program, look at the rest, very anti-prosperity, particularly ideas on trade. Why would republicans want to associate the brand with this?

Mike Ozanian: More importantly, my opinion, David, the fact that if you were in the bottom quintile during the Reagan years, eight out of ten of those people in that quintile in income rose to a higher quintile. Upward movement. Take-home adjusted for inflation wend up an average $4,000 per family.

Bruce Japsen: I guess what concerns me most is, Trump has no credibility to talk about taxes, because he hasn't released any of his tax returns and eastern Romney said this week there's probably a bomb in there.

Carrie Sheffield: I agree with that half of your analogy. Absolutely I think Paul Ryan could be the new Jack Kemp. I loved Jack Kemp, am friends with his son. He's fantastic, but I don't think the Reagan analogy, I agree with John on this. Reagan was consistent. The shot in the arm against Jimmy Carter's sluggishness. The problem, Donald Trump is not consistent. Flip-flopping ought the time.

Bill Bladwin: I think Trump is worse than inconsistent. He could poison the conservative movement and the supply side tax economics for which it stands.

GOVERNMENT BLOCKS MERGER BETWEEN OFFICE DEPOT AND STAPLES

John Tamny: It's a huge attack on business, big business, and by extensions, an attack on jobs, simply this is anti-shareholder. Face it, shareholders wanted this merger, wanted the Pfizer merger, and when the administration through the DOJ is getting in the way of investors it's by definition getting in the way of the very investments that creates companies and jobs. This is so chilling to see happening, particularly in the last year of the administration.

Bruce Japsen: I think in it this case, these are specially focused business and office supplies and if they want to grow, i mean, they can do it organically and come up with better product for the web.

John Tamny: And save those jobs. By the way, breathtakingly idiotic. Costco and Walmart going up against people. Down by a fifth versus last year. Nearly $400 billion are deals not being done. When mike talks about this, were you better off than 20 years ago? That's where your household income is stuck at now.

Bill Baldwin: Halliburton would have had giant layoffs anyway because the price of oil went down.

Mike Ozanian: No. And just to show how idiotic the government is, back to 1997 when they first proposed a merge and the government killed that. How have the companies done since then? Terribly. The last several years declines in revenue and started to lay off people. Should have let his happen in '97 and not doing it now compounds the problem.

Carrie Sheffield: You're absolutely right, and like you said, online retailers, like millennials, we don't do brick and mortar's we shop online where we buy our products. The stocks for both of these economies plummeted is chilling. Frightening. Because when you have that confidence drop, they'll start to see revenues drop and then you will see layoffs.

REPORT: FORMER FACEBOOK WORKERS: SOME CONSERVATIVE NEWS BLOCKED FROM TRENDING SECTION

Carrie Sheffield: Especially for millennials. The number one platform, socially for us. We're getting our news from there. If they're suppressing information, troubling for the rising generation. The guy who handles trending maxed out donations to Hillary Clinton. Facebook is also donating a ton of money to Hillary Clinton as well. So we really need red flags here, and it's great the Republicans on the Senate are asking questions here.

Mike Ozanian: They've also kind of said reportedly, some subjectivity is involved in terms of what they put in the trending section. But I think Republicans would be wise to leave this "loan, even if it turns out to be true, because tell you what, David, if it is true, it will do great harm to Facebook, a competitor will come out and arise to offer a better product. That's what always happens in these types of situations.

John Tamny: I'm with mike on this one. I think republicans should stay away with it. It is a private company. If Facebook wants to offend potentially half of its users, an economic decision taken care of in the marketplace.

Elizabeth Macdonald : Censorship, and Facebook could be considered the biggest news outlet in the world with 1.6 billion users. I'm with John and Mike on this. This, the government should stay out of it. They risk their reputation. Considered a news outfit, they'll be as unpopular as a lot of people in the media. Media is very unpopular because of how biased they are.

Sabrina Schaeffer: Democrats should be ashamed of their treatment of for-profit colleges. They're competitive with higher education.

Bill Baldwin- I wouldn't worry what Facebook is up to. They're in the business of giving customers what they want. Coming soon, a new slant button. Press this command key and get a right wing or left wing slant to your news. If that what you wants they give it to you.

Bruce Japsen: Liberals aren't happy about this either. This shows the dangers of Silicon Valley controlling content. We could have disgruntled employees here, but people need to realize they're not public utilities.

STOCK PICKS

Elizabeth MacDonald: (VHDYX)

Bill Baldwin (THO)