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Published June 12, 2017
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 DEVELOPMENTS FUELING WORRIES OVER TAX CUT TIMELINE
Steve Forbes: The economy needs the boost. If they don’t, the economy’s going to stay in a rut. So the first thing they should be need worrying about is not this nonsense about revenue neutrality and stuff like that, but what helps the economy immediately. And we know what does it, what does it, it's radical cuts in tax rates, on the corporate side and the personal side, you just do it and this idea that you can forecast ten years out, hey, weather people can't forecast five days out, it gets dicey. Get the job done.
Bruce Japsen: Well, I think the problem here is that people are concerned about and even McConnell is that, Donald's tax cuts would blow a hole in the deficit. But I think Paul Ryan gave a little bit of a forecast here when he said that, whether the President asked Flynn to drop this investigation, he said something about the President was all new to this. So I think you should go all small-ball here because the president is all new to this and I don't think he can handle a big tax cut.
Elizabeth MacDonald: Right, I think the economy can handle a tax cut, news flash. You know, and by the way, I'm so tired of Comey --palooza: that was like watching the weird inner workings of a knitting factory, it was so breath taking tedious revelations. But you're right David about the cap gains tax cut, it brought it more than the hikes and the death tax of the upper bracket during the Clinton era, Reagan saw it, Kennedy saw it happened. Bill Clinton saw it happen. More revenues started pouring in and when you have tax cuts like the Eisenhower years, there were recessions every other year and watch the growth in real income during the Reagan era '83 to '89 spiked higher by 12 percent for whom, the lower 20th percentile of the people out there.
John Tamny: The answer is for Republicans to stop talking about revenues. Since when is it the job of the American worker to make sure that Congress has more money to waste? Taxes should be cut period, and hopefully revenues decline. Because if so, the tax that is government spending the museum of the unseen will be reduced and the economy will boom.
Sabrina Schaeffer: This is a huge public affairs opportunity for the Republican Party. They have got to get out there and explain to middle class voters, that when you cut corporate taxes, the middle class does better, there’s more jobs there’s upward pressure on wages, there’s benefit structures, there’s more flexible, there’s more competition so there’s going to be more opportunity out there. And in addition to cutting corporate tax rates way back, they also need to allow corporations and small businesses to write off all of these expenses as deductions so they can invest in research and development. I remember the first time my husband's business got business tangible tax for an arbitrary number for buying office supplies. It's crazy that the government throws these speed bumps at you all the way up the road.
UK'S PRIME MINISTER: INTERNET MUST BE REGULATED TO PREVENT TERRORISM
Sabrina Schaeffer: My heart goes out to what the British people are going through right now and I understand that there's always a feeling that you want to sort of shut down everything after an attack like they've been having. That being said, social media is a powerful tool and one that we do not want to dismiss or shut down. This is a way of keeping terrorists visible. We want to be able to track them. We want to know what they're up to. And if we push them down, they are going to find another way we won't be able to monitor.
Bruce Japsen: Well, I think that there should be a way for the government to work with them, to make sure this they do that. I mean, we've got-- don't have any examples I can think of where they've actually nailed somebody and they’ve said look, government, we've helped you out here. So maybe there's a way to deputize these companies into doing that, and maybe that’s what they’re trying to do.
Steve Forbes: I think the idea of, first of all, government regulating anything on the internet is a bad idea. I think it's just common sense and the internet companies should be urged more and more to do common sense things. If they see something, do it. If a terrorist attack takes place like San Bernardino California, and they have a phone and open it up just for at that purpose. So common sense goes a long way and Theresa May the prime minister of Britain is trying to scapegoat these internet companies for her lack of action against known terrorists.
Elizabeth MacDonald: I'm not sure that's possible. I think one way to go, just don't let terrorists drop off watch lists, like Omar Mateen fell off a watch list, the Orlando shooter. I hear what everybody is saying, when you have the government look into encrypted apps, it’s worth noting that the oppressed people of Venezuela use encrypted apps to communicate with each other under that dictatorship. So you may be hurting good people. I think what we have to do as western societies is go on offense like Israel did when it had a spade of knifing attacks, Israel is always on offense, we’ve got to stop playing defense.
John Tamny: Yeah, certainly markets can work here, but I think the main thing is going back to what Sabrina said it's one way to wish away terrorism and everything, but the idea that you can get rid of it by making people less free defies basic common sense. Murderers will always find the soft target. If you secure the airport, they'll start hitting outside the airport. This notion that we're going to make people safer by eroding the freedom of everyone just isn't going to work.
AMAZON OFFERS PRIME SERVICE DISCOUNT TO PEOPLE ON FOOD STAMPS
John Tamny: Let's be clear that the United States won the war on poverty a long time ago with economic growth. The evidence supporting that claim is the fact that people risked their lives to get here every year in order to cure their poverty. It's the idea that we need more food stamp spending, seems very backwards we’ve got the economic growth; people need to make better decisions. If Amazon wants to offer up deals for people with less, that's a private decision. But I don't like the idea of government fighting poverty. You fight poverty with growth.
Elizabeth MacDonald: I think he's right. It's a sea change from Obama, you know, the Julia in the government paid for a community garden and the world of government living. I think Mick Mulvaney’s right. But with this food stamp usage online, I'm not opposed to it, I want to help the poor, they cannot drive their cars to get good food. It helps them save money getting food delivered to their homes.
Steve Forbes: It's very basic David. The Obama administration went out of its way to encourage people to sign up for food stamps, it was sort of like a liars loans during the housing bubble. They didn't look they just wanted to sign people up, make them dependent. So people really need help, by all means provide it, but I think if you tighten administration have that work requirement you’re going to find at least out of the 44 million on there probably at least 20 million will drop off.
Bruce Japsen: You could be preventing a poor person from buying a great book by Warren Buffett or Steve Forbes to better themselves. Listen, people on Medicare and social security, seniors get discounts on things, I just don't see a problem with it.
Sabrina Schaeffer: I think that Amazon has both its head and heart in the right place, they’re doing a number of things to sort of assist people in need especially using their drones to deliver things to food deserts. That being said I do think that this puts into sharp relief some of the problems with supplemental nutrition assistance program or snap, and I think it reminds us, if we got rid of the waste and the fraud and abuse, we could really actually help those people in need in an affordable way.
STEADY STOCK
Elizabeth MacDonald: NVIDIA
John Tamny: AMC HOLDINGS
https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/new-concerns-about-tax-cut-timeline