Veteran financial guru Larry Kudlow, who served as the Donald Trump campaign's senior economic adviser, said the president-elect and Congress have much more pressing business than to tinker with an ethics panel.
“I don't get it. I don’t like it,” Kudlow told CNBC, shortly before House Republicans dropped their bid to weaken the independent Office of Congressional Ethics.
“It looks like a mistake to me. It also looks like a revolt," he said. "House troops revolted against the leadership. Leadership didn't want this. I wouldn't start the new year taking down the ethics requirements, but that's just me. Play by the rules, thank you very much,” said Kudlow, a Newsmax Finance Insider, radio talk-show host and CNBC senior contributor.
“There are bigger fish to fry," said Kudlow — host of "The Larry Kudlow Show" and author of "JFK and the Reagan Revolution: A Secret History of American Prosperity," written with Brian Domitrovic and published by Portfolio.
“Congress reconvenes and the big issue is what to do about budget resolutions and reconciliation packages with respect to two gigantic issues," said Kudlow, who was a key architect of Trump’s tax platform and an early supporter of the real-estate billionaire's campaign.
"One is reforming or rewriting health care, Obamacare, and the other is tax reform, especially business tax reform. These are huge issues. And the House has to make key decisions along with the Senate very soon," said Kudlow, who worked as Reagan’s budget deputy between 1981 and 1985.
Kudlow again touted the crucial importance of prompt business tax reform. He said lawmakers should be doing prep work on tax reform. “If you delay it to the end of the year or next year, people will delay decisions in the economy. That'll make 2017 a much worse year than people want.”
For years, big U.S. companies have turned to acquisitions of foreign companies to put their overseas cash to work, rather than bring it home at a 35-percent tax rate. Trump has proposed allowing repatriation of this cash at a 10-percent tax rate, hoping some of it will be spent on hiring and investing in their businesses.
Trump also has promised a 15 percent corporate rate. Business groups have long said their members are hurt because U.S. companies pay the most federal income tax -- a 35 percent rate, though the effective rate is often lower -- among the 35 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Bloomberg reported.
President-elect Donald Trump blasted a move by House Republicans to effectively weaken the independent Office of Congressional Ethics that investigates lawmakers’ alleged misconduct.
“With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it may be, their number one act and priority,” Trump wrote on Twitter Tuesday morning. “Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance!’ He closed his tweet with “#DTS,” a reference to his campaign promise to “drain the swamp” of corruption in Washington.
The amendment was stripped from a rules package by voice vote, three lawmakers said, in a last-minute meeting called Tuesday as criticism mounted. The controversy over the office that investigates lawmakers’ alleged misconduct was starting to overshadow the opening of the 115th Congress, normally a day of glad-handing as lawmakers bring family members to the floor to join the festivities.
"We have got just a tremendous number of calls to our office here and district offices concerned about this," said Representative Walter Jones, a North Carolina Republican.
The House GOP voted behind closed doors Monday night to make the independent office “subject to oversight” by the House Ethics Committee and significantly restrict its powers. The three lawmakers who confirmed the amendment was dropped were Mo Brooks of Alabama, Darrell Issa of California and Bill Flores of Texas.
(Newsmax wire services contributed to this report).
Larry Kudlow is a senior contributor at CNBC. His new book is “JFK and the Reagan Revolution: A Secret History of American Prosperity,” written with Brian Domitrovic.
To find out more about Larry Kudlow and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com
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