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.
INCOMING WH CHIEF OF STAFF: SMALL TAX REFORM PACKAGE FIRST, THEN A BIGGER ONE
Steve Forbes: Because you got to get this economy roaring again, that gives you political capital to give you the other things that need to be done, so go with big tax cuts, the lower the tax rates are, the more prosperity we get. If you go small first, it's harder to bring it up later.
Bruce Japsen: Here's the deal. I sometimes wonder about the -- I don't know what the adversaries are, because the party of Reagan not only seems to with Donald loves the Russians, but they love ballooning deficits and are escaping fiscal conservatism. I don't know how he's going to pay for this. He wants to pursue the wall. He wants to pursue all this stuff and I don't see how he's going to pay for it.
Elizabeth MacDonald: Come on, they never look at the issue that it's government spending that's holding a lot of things up. Steve's absolutely right; you got to go full bore 100 percent in one shot immediately. And basically if you don't do the tax cut the way that trump wants it, you're going have to people like Mitch McConnell and Bernie Sanders come in and say you got to have payroll taxes, that's exactly what happened with Reagan to save social security.
Bill Baldwin: I would love to see some gift that pays for itself. But cutting taxes without cutting spending is voodoo economics.
.John Tamny: History shows that when you cut the rate of taxation, revenues actually go up. I don’t like the revenue aspect of it, but it’s true. Trump is making a mistake if he doesn't spend this political capital now. As Steve says if you don't go big now, it's going to be much harder down the line. After that, I don't see why the American worker needs to make sure that congress has enough money to spend; we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
PRESIDENT-ELECT’S DEREGULATION PLAN IN FOCUS AS FEDERAL REGISTER TOPS 90,000 PAGES F0R FIRST TIME
John Tamny: I love that he's pushing a deregulation plan, but it's not going far enough. With regulation we cannot stress enough that we are asking those who could not get jobs in energy, pharmaceuticals, medicine, finance and banking to police those who could so it never works. All regulations are a tax that never achieves a positive outcome.
Bruce Japsen: Well, it probably is but I think when you're dealing with Washington and you're dealing with Donald in particular, it's like whac-a-mole here, he wants to maybe gut the EPA and get rid of regulation there, but he wants to create a registry and track every Muslim in the country.
Elizabeth MacDonald: That's true, that's right. By the way, Trump is saying, he's talking about Syrian refugees that aren't track it. He's not saying track every Muslim, that's not fair. The problem right now is you're going to have New York State attorneys general saying we're going to continue to sue no matter what trump does with regulations, they're going to sue the EPA with more regulations, remember when Howard Baker with the riverboat gamble and gamble.
Steve Forbes: If it's going to cost the economy more than $50 million, $100 million a year, it has to go before Congress, not just veto it but pass it so they take responsibility for some of this nonsense instead of saying, oh, it's out of my hands.
Bill Baldwin: I think we should go further, let's repeal 3 federal criminal statutes for every new one. So some hate crime legislation wants to be added to the books, you have to appeal that it's a felony to have dirt in your front yard.
NEW REPORTS ON COST OF HEROIN EPIDEMIC
Steve Forbes: A wall would be a good start, that kind of enforcement is never a waste of money and having a better economy so you don't have much to spare. School reform is good too. 200 years ago we had massive liquor problems in this country, alcoholism, religious leaders cultural leaders got together and said a self-governing nation has to have self-governing people.
Bill Baldwin: That's a tragedy, but the height of the wall and the amount of barbed-wire you have on it, will have no effect on heroin overdoses.
John Tamny: I question the statistics on the big try us we have here, but my solution is that the White House should have no solution, the federal government can't be your everything and solve every problem, we have tried a war on drugs, it's been an utter failure. Republicans needs to realize that big government fails when they impose it on us just as much as when the Democrats do.
Elizabeth MacDonald: You make a great point, children pouring into foster homes in states across the country. This is a national tragedy. The issue too is look at what's happening in Mexico, decriminalizing heroin, Ireland looking to decriminalize small amounts of heroin. As many people as I have talked to in the FBI say do not legalize drugs. I'm not talking about marijuana, I’m talking about the hard drugs, when you do that, it leads to addiction and they're doing that in Ireland and other countries.
Bruce Japsen: I will one up you that one of the biggest problems trump needs to get beyond Mexico; we have a huge problem where Chinese suppliers are shipping synthetic drugs and synthetic fentanyl which is a huge problem. When it comes to addiction, you have to treat mental health and addiction like you do regular medical treatment.
STOCK PICKS
Elizabeth MacDonald: (PRDMX)
Bill Baldwin: (VNO)
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox