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Monday, August 8, 2016

Mark Halperin is Hyping Trump's Economic Speech Today

He seems to think that Trump can make this a 'reset' by giving a good economic speech.

"Donald Trump will propose a temporary moratorium on new financial regulations in an economic speech Monday in Detroit in an effort to draw a stark contrast with the domestic policies of Hillary Clinton, who he says “punishes” the American economy."

"The Republican presidential nominee’s speech will focus on providing regulatory relief for small businesses, according to senior campaign aides familiar with its contents. More broadly, Trump will say he will not propose any new financial regulations until the economy shows “significant growth,” the aides said. Trump has previously said he would repeal and replace the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act."

"Trump will also propose a repeal of the estate tax, sometimes called the “death tax.” Under current law, the 40 percent tax applies only to estates larger than $5.45 million for individuals and $10.9 million for couples."

"For U.S. businesses, Trump will propose a tax rate of 15 percent and suggest strengthening intellectual-property protections. He’ll also call for the elimination of special tax treatment for carried-interest income at private-equity firms and other investment firms—the latter of which is a proposal his Democratic rival also supports."

"Carried interest, which is a portion of investment gains paid to certain investment managers, is currently taxed like capital gains—at rates that can be as low as 23.8 percent. Trump proposes to tax them as ordinary income, but for members of partnerships, that could actually mean a rate cut to 15 percent."

"Trump will continue to stress his opposition to the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement backed by the Obama administration and many prominent Republicans in Congress, and he will reinforce his commitment to the coal industry."

"He will portray President Barack Obama’s regulatory policies as having crushed middle- and lower-class Americans and will propose making all child care tax deductible. Clinton, in contrast, has proposed a cap on child-care costs at 10 percent of a family’s income."

"Trump will take direct aim at the Clintons and Obama, pointing to Detroit as an example of their failed economic policies. He will argue that their “record-breaking pace of new regulations, tax increases, restrictions on private-energy production and one-sided trade deals” have hurt Detroit and other cities, according to excerpts of his remarks shared with Bloomberg Politics."

He will call Obama’s Clinton-backed regulations a “lead-weight on the economy, an anchor dragging us down.” And he will say that Americans “need to hit the pause buttons on these regulations so our businesses can reinvest in the economy.”

“She's the candidate of the past and ours is the campaign of the future,” Trump plans to say. “Every policy that has failed Detroit has been fully supported by Hillary Clinton. The one common feature of every Hillary Clinton idea is that it punishes you from working and doing business in the United States.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-08-08/trump-to-propose-moratorium-on-new-financial-regulations

You can try to gauge the impact of this speech on its own terms or look at the bigger picture. 

On its own terms it seems like a pretty standard GOP speech against regulations and taxes. The child tax credit is not as generous as HRC"s cap. George W. Bush had a CCT. 

But I think the trouble is the whole notion of 'reset' or etch a sketch. 

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/08/hugh-hewitts-etch-sketch-theory.html

There is so much water under the bridge for Trump at this point. Can one speech, even one well delivered off the teleprompter really change all that? 

I wonder if Trump's Steve-o-centric economic team put this one together with no girls allowed. 

Assuming there are no mistakes he doesn't have a lot of credibility. And this is Trump so how do you assume that?

But in any case, the GOP theory is that Trump needs to focus on the economy. Certainly that would be better than all the wild stuff that he does focus on like secret payoffs he saw, or attacking the Khan family. 

But this sounds sort of like the Mitt Romney playbook of 2012. That was a weaker economy than today's and it didn't work. 

Trump has been using a talking point that the 1.2% GDP last quarter was the worse since 1948-which is not close to true. 

But even if it's a really good economic speech-something which history gives you the right to be skeptical of-it won't erase the last 13 months. 

The bird's eye view is that there are 96 days left. If you start from May 7. Hillary has a 5 point net polling average lead. 

I don't know that we've ever had a race where one candidate trailed the other the entire race and then won. What is striking about election history is that for POTUS, the candidate who leads in the averages usually wins. 

So the idea of the reset doesn't have much history behind it. 

Bottomline:

1. Even a great economic speech Trump can't overcome his entire 13 month campaign. 

2. It's hard to imagine him giving a great speech where he doesn't step on the message. 

3. The speech in any case will be one Hillary will have no problem knocking down on the level of content-the idea that we should roll back regulation. Other than TPP, it's a very Republican speech. 

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