DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING "Cost of Freedom Recap" CONTAINS STRONG OPINIONS WHICH ARE NOT A REFLECTION OF THE OPINIONS OF FOX NEWS AND SHOULD NOT BE RELIED UPON AS INVESTMENT ADVICE WHEN MAKING PERSONAL INVESTMENT DECISIONS. IT IS FOX NEWS' POLICY THAT CONTRIBUTORS DISCLOSE POSITIONS THEY HOLD IN STOCKS THEY DISCUSS, THOUGH POSITIONS MAY CHANGE. READERS OF "Cost of Freedom Recap" MUST TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR OWN INVESTMENT DECISIONS.
New Look At President-elect Trump's Tax Plan Ahead of Inauguration Day
The inauguration is just around the corner, new signs President-elect Trump may not get the tax plan he wants. Incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus quoted as saying "we have a huge challenge here" following a meeting with Speaker Ryan on tax reform.
Jonas Max Ferris: That Obama tax rate is the same as during the Bush tax cuts. All of the revenue is coming from the higher earning tax base. Everyone else is paying a single digit tax rate in America. Let's not forget how low taxes are right now. What's wrong is how complicated and ridiculous it is to get to your single digit tax rate. Republicans need to model this after the Reagan 86 tax plan. President-Elect Trump needs to make tax reform not just across the board tax cuts. Simplify the tax code. You can't just have across the board tax cuts because we are already running deficits because Obama didn't raise the tax rates on the majority of people.
Gary B. Smith: The single biggest thing that President-Elect Donald Trump can do right now is cut taxes. It will be stimulative to the people's economy. They'd actually get to spend their own money. I say this for two reasons: First, it seems like every dollar we give to the government for "stimulus" is wasted. Do we have anything to show for the one trillion dollar stimulus that we had under Obama? I don't think so. Secondly, every single dollar we give to the government seems to be wasted. There's not one project over the last 50 years that has come in on time and under budget. The bigger issue is this: It's the people's money. What do people deserve to keep from their paycheck? Almost every single dollar, except what we give to the government for national defense and enforcing our laws. We need to shrink government and move on,
John Layfield: The problem that we have is something that is politically palpable. Personal income tax is not politically palpable and it is not quite as effective as the corporate income tax. You don't want to make the same mistake that President Obama made when he first came into office and passed Obamacare in such a partisan fashion that it created such ill will for the next seven years, no one would with him. President-Elect Trump should do something politically palpable such as reforming the corporate income tax. We have small businesses that pay up to fifty percent income tax which is completely unfair. Cut it down to fifteen, twenty percent because they can't do corporate tax inversions or lobby the government. This will go directly to jobs and capital investment.
Emily Jashinsky: What better time to have tax cuts than now? We do need across the board tax cuts. The Trump tax plan is looking great with three individual tax brackets. Things are looking really good for the future. The mood of Republicans right now in Washington D.C., if I have to describe it in one word is: eager. People are bursting at the seams to cut through that fog of the last eight years. Make change, get the tax cuts done. I think it's going to happen, and I think that it is going to happen soon.
Chuck Rocha: Let's talk about these bill for a little bit. The House bill takes about six trillion dollars out of our revenue over ten years and the Trump Bill does around six or seven. Let's bring it down to a man who has a small business, say a small LLC, a political firm. When I got through writing checks to the government, for a man who may have had his best year ever, they want thirty-nine percent for the federal tax, another nine percent tax for the DC government. That leaves me with fifty cents on the dollar when the big boys aren't paying hardly nothing and folks that ain't got no money aren't paying anything either. Quit squeezing the middle.
'Fight for $15' Protests Break Out This Week Over Trump's Labor Secretary Nominee
Jonas Max Ferris: All of these policies are bad for the unions, I'm not sure why they back this. The reason Unions have been on the decline is because the government has been raising wages and all of the stuff that unions have been doing for hundreds of years. Unions will become obsolete because the government has been doing their jobs.
Gary B. Smith: A couple of points: The average union worker makes twenty-two dollars an hour. Why do they care about 15 dollars an hour? Because a lot of their collective bargaining agreements are tied to the minimum wage so they don't care about the fifteen dollars, they care that the base goes up so that they get more. They don't care about the average worker. Raising the minimum wage hurts the franchisee that has less money to spend to hire employees or improve the product.
John Layfield: Unions are dying right now. They've gone from 46% of the market to low single digits so unions have to manufacture crises like this so they can appear relevant. Why fifteen dollars? Why not twenty-five dollars? The reason is that it looks good on a poster. Instead of fixing the minimum wage long term, they'd rather do this so they can say every couple of years that they're defending the worker. We lost eight million jobs to automation in manufacturing not outsourcing. We're going to lose a lot more than that entry-level minimum wage jobs, especially in fast food. Unions need to be spending their times preparing for this and getting their members qualified instead of trying to bring more people into unions.
Emily Jashinsky: You have to feel for these people who are working so hard and not feeling like they're getting ahead with Big Labor telling them "look you need a fifteen dollar hand-out." I have good news for these people. We're now going to have a new Secretary Labor who has more experience creating jobs than most career bureaucrats. He's a job creation expert who's going to create an economy where there are more jobs, and it's going to benefit them!
Chuck Rocha: There are about 3.75 million fast food workers that the union could organize. The fight's not really about that because most workers are in right-to-work states so it's going to be hard for SEIU to reach some of them. This is about the fight they're going to have with the incoming Labor Secretary and they are going to have the fight of their life. So they're trying to build consensus around an issue that's highly popular with American public. If you raise the minimum wage, people will be able to buy more stuff which would help stimulate the economy.
Media Coverage in Focus as Watchdog Probes FBI and DOJ's Handling of Clinton Email Case
Jonas Max Ferris: The media's main bias is the ratings bias which is why the papers are getting more play about the FBI investigation than the other way around.
Gary B. Smith: My prediction is simple: In the next four to eight years, the New York Times will not say one single positive thing about Donald Trump unless he announces that he is resigning.
John Layfield: The media needs a scapegoat. They were wrong about the polls, they were wrong about who was going to win, they were wrong about everything. It's like a sportswriter who thinks sports exist because of them. The people in the media are condescending to the people whose news they read.
Emily Jashinsky: Why is Donald Trump's Drain the Swamp resonating so much? It's because of headlines like this because the media is grasping at straws with Donald Trump's election.
Chuck Rocha: At the end of the day, our elections are sacred things and everyone should be investigated so we make sure no one affects the results of our election.
Stock Picks
Gary B. Smith: Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA)
John Layfield: Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA)
Jonas Max Ferris: 3M Co (MMM)
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox