Chief White House Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow said President Trump is planning another round of tax cuts as part of a comprehensive fiscal blueprint to resuscitate an economy ravaged by the coronavirus.
Kudlow spoke Thursday during a campaign conference call organized by former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty, a Republican and Trump ally running for Senate in Tennessee. Kudlow credited Trump’s aggressive deregulation agenda and signature $1.5 trillion tax reduction bill, approved in late 2017, for spurring the robust economic growth and job creation that preceded the coronavirus and said that both deregulation and tax cuts would be critical components of Trump’s strategy for a post-pandemic recovery.
“As the rescue phase ends and the reopening occurs, we will move forward with additional tax cuts, regulatory relief, better trade deals for American exporters to help farmers and manufacturers and auto workers and technology people,” Kudlow said, as government figures revealed that another 4.4 million people had filed for unemployment insurance, pushing the ranks of the jobless north of 26 million over the past six weeks.
“These free enterprise policies, which rebuilt and reinvigorated the economy under President Trump — they worked once,” Kudlow said.
In mid-March, Trump endorsed a broad shutdown of the economy to enforce strict social distancing mandates designed to limit the spread of the coronavirus. The president recently issued guidelines for a gradual reopening, leaving the final decision to governors and local officials. However, Trump criticized Gov. Brian Kemp for acting too quickly after the Republican announced Georgia would begin transitioning back to normal this week.
Kudlow conceded that he expects “rough weeks” of economic turbulence and more job losses ahead. And he acknowledged that the United States would not be free from the health risks of the coronavirus for the foreseeable future and would have to adapt.
But he spoke optimistically about May as a month of transition, saying that he expected to see a movement from pandemic lockdown to economic revival based on the latest rates of COVID-19 infections available. And Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, said Trump would respond with an agenda to bring shuttered businesses back to life and maximize job growth, highlighting more than once during the call plans for more tax cuts.
“You will see a lot of states reopen in the next week or so,” Kudlow said. “As we transition from the shut-in to the reopening, there’ll be a new set of economic policies, which will extend and expand on President Trump’s original economic policies.”
Hagerty, 60, was a Trump appointee and worked closely with the president and senior White House officials, Kudlow included, on trade negotiations with Japan. The career businessman is running to succeed Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, who is retiring.
The Hagerty campaign billed the conference call as a town hall meeting to discuss the impact of the coronavirus on the economy. At the outset, a Hagerty campaign aide announced that Kudlow joined the virtual event in his “personal capacity as a conservative economic commentator” and emphasized his participation did not constitute a “solicitation of funds.”
The Hatch Act, a federal statute, generally prohibits executive branch officials, other than the president and vice president, from overt political activity, such as fundraising. Limited engagement in campaigns is allowed under the law.
