Veteran financial guru and former Ronald Reagan adviser Larry Kudlow warns that President Donald Trump can’t let former FBI director James Comey’s testimony and other distractions disrupt the administration and Republican Party’s agenda on healthcare and tax reform.
“They got to get this done,” Kudlow explained on CNBC. “If they don't get this done, they're going to get creamed in the midterms next year, on two grounds," the Newsmax Finance Insider said.
"Number one, they will not have taken steps to palpably improve the economy on wages and so forth. Number two, they can't govern. You elected them, they should be able to govern,” said Kudlow, who advised the Trump campaign on economic issues.
Kudlow said he and fellow Newsmax Insider Stephen Moore “met with senior, senior, senior people in the west wing yesterday,” and they presented a three-point plan.
“And it's simple. Three pieces is all we want. Get done what you can get done,” said Kudlow, the author of "JFK and the Reagan Revolution: A Secret History of American Prosperity," written with Brian Domitrovic and published by Portfolio.
- "Number one, lower the corporate tax rate 15%
- "Number two, immediate expensing for new investments.
- "Number three, repatriation at a small 10% one-time rate."
“There is widespread agreement in Washington to get a business tax cut through, which, by the way, the 70% of the benefits go to the wage-earning middle class. That's very important,” said the radio talk-show host and CNBC senior contributor.
“Leave the larger issues for personal tax reform and overall -- leave that for next year. Just get this done,” said Kudlow, who worked as Reagan’s budget deputy between 1981 and 1985.
“You can legally and technically attach that kind of business tax cut to the healthcare reform bill in reconciliation for 2017. That can be done. Now, I'm not saying the people we've tried to sell this to in the White House -- I'm not saying they agreed,” explained Kudlow, who was a key architect of Trump’s tax platform and an early supporter of the real-estate billionaire's campaign.
“They listened, they're pondering it, it's in play. No commitments. I don't want to mislead people. But I'm just saying, that's cooking. It's cooking. And you can attach it to the reconciliation bill,” he said.
Meanwhile, written testimony from Comey did not include any big surprise about an investigation into Russian meddling with the U.S. presidential election, Reuters reported.
Comey wrote that Trump pressured him into watering down the Federal Bureau of Investigation's probe into whether Russia meddled in the November vote.
However, the details of Comey's testimony, expected to be delivered Thursday to a Senate Committee, had been previously reported, and appeared to be priced into the stock market.
Investors were concerned that any additional revelation could dampen already flagging momentum for Trump's agenda of lower taxes and lax regulations.
Bets that Trump can implement his agenda are partly behind a rally that has taken stock indexes to record highs.
"They were hoping that there wasn’t going to be anything in there that was more inflammatory," said Peter Costa, president of trading firm Empire Executions.
"The testimony wasn’t as disastrous as it could have been," he said of the prepared remarks, adding that the market was relieved no damaging details emerged and his testimony "more than likely isn’t going to blow up into some big fiasco, another thing that the president has to deal with."
(Newsmax wire services contributed to this report).
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