Larry Kudlow Really Likes Trump’s Tax Plan

By Hunter Wallace

Larry Kudlow is cheerleading for Donald Trump’s tax plan:

“Renowned economist Larry Kudlow Tuesday endorsed Donald Trump’s tax plan, telling Newsmax TV that it is “a pro-growth, supply-side” program that would grow the nation’s long-slagging economy.

“I really like Trump’s plan,” the CNBC senior contributor told “The Steve Malzberg Show” in an interview. “One of the things I just love about it is the 15 percent corporate tax rate …

Kudlow, who hosts his own syndicated radio show, has long championed a 15 percent corporate tax rate, but “I never thought I’d see a candidate do it.

“It’ll give us a gigantic advantage. Bring capital and businesses to the U.S., make us the most hospitable place to invest — and that’s what Donald Trump has done.”

Wait a minute … Grover Norquist and Larry Kudlow are cheerleading for Trump’s tax plan. Stop right there. What about the hedge fund guys who are getting away with murder?

“It turns out that Trump was either bluffing or being cynical. It’s true that, in abolishing the carried-interest deduction for hedge-fund managers, he would force them to pay a tax rate of twenty-five per cent instead of twenty per cent on some of their income. But, by reducing the top rate on ordinary income from 39.6 per cent to twenty-five per cent, he would give the hedgies and other members of the one per cent a huge break on the taxes they pay on income not covered by the deduction. In addition, he would introduce a new tax break—a rate of just fifteen per cent on “pass-through” income generated by small businesses—that hedge funds and other partnerships might well be able to exploit to their advantage. In the words tweeted out by Len Burman, the respected director of the centrist Tax Policy Center, “#Trump tax plan is huge tax cut on the rich. How huge is hard to say because details are scarce.”

You can’t play the populist billionaire while promising to give yourself a Herbert Hoover size tax cut. It will inevitably raise the question: is this what your campaign has been about all along? How can Trump attack ¡Jeb! for being controlled by his donors when Trump’s tax cut is even more #yuge – more luxurious – for the Republican donor class?