Republican Senator Tim Scott on Thursday called for lower taxes and reduced government spending, including targeting social welfare programs, as part of his new presidential campaign. Economic plan.
Promoting his new plan on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Scott said his system would ultimately bring more money into the nation’s coffers.
“I think the Laver curve is still working, frankly,” Scott said.
He was referring to conservative economist Art Laffer’s controversial theory that helped popularize the view that cutting taxes would unleash enough additional economic activity to generate an increase in tax revenues.
Cutting taxes “creates and encourages capital to move away from the margin, and when that happens you see growth in Treasury revenues,” Scott said.
“We saw it in 2019, we saw it in 2018. I think if we cut taxes again we will see the same path that will stimulate growth in our economy,” he said.
His plan aims to make permanent the tax cuts, which were signed into law in 2017 by former President Donald Trump. These provisions are scheduled to expire in 2025.
Laffer’s curve, said to have been envisioned on a cocktail napkin in the 1970s, has been embraced by many in mainstream Republican circles, although Many critics We will note that both conservative and liberal economists have attacked this theory.
When asked whether this expected rise in revenues would be enough to cover the loss from the tax cuts themselves, Scott said the problem was overspending.
“It’s not just a revenue problem, it’s a spending problem,” he told CNBC, noting that his plan aims to curb non-defense discretionary spending to pre-pandemic levels.
Scott’s plan would repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, the sweeping spending law that President Joe Biden asserts was crucial to lowering the inflation rate over the past year.
It would also impose “welfare reform work requirements,” arguing that it would “reduce our spending on welfare programs by encouraging work.”
“In America, if you’re able-bodied, you have to work,” Scott said.
Scott is consistently stuck in the low to mid-single digits in national polls for the Republican primary race.
This article originally appeared on www.cnbc.com
