Economist Stephen Moore, who helped draft Donald Trump’s original tax reform bill in 2017, is fully on board with the president-elect’s plan to take it one step further during his second term.
Moore posted on Monday on social media platform X, “Every elected leader in Congress should say YES to Trump’s proposed 15% corporate tax rate.”
“This move would position the U.S. among the lowest corporate tax rates in the [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development]. More growth and more investment in America!” he added.
Moore included a graph showing where the U.S. current corporate tax rate stands in comparison to the rest of the world, when the average state and local corporate tax rates are included, which is 25.6 percent. Under Trump’s proposal that would go down to 19.6 percent.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduced America’s corporate tax rate at the federal level from 35 percent — the highest in the industrialized world — to its current 21 percent.
Every elected leader in Congress should say YES to Trump’s proposed 15% corporate tax rate.
This move would position the U.S. among the lowest corporate tax rates in the OECD.
More growth and more investment in America! pic.twitter.com/B01mq9WPXK
— Stephen Moore (@StephenMoore) January 13, 2025
Lowering the corporate tax rate in 2017 was a real boon to the U.S. Treasury as increased economic growth led to more revenue.
The federal government took in $297 billion in corporate tax revenue in fiscal year 2017, which was prior to the TCJA taking effect.
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In FY 2023, the total was $420 billion.
In FY 2024, the total was $530 billion.
In March 2022, President Joe Biden unintentionally conceded that Trump’s tax cuts overall — corporate and individual — worked exactly as advertised.
“[W]e have generated a GDP growth of 5.7 percent, the best economic growth we’ve seen in this country in over 40 years. This has led to a substantial increase in government revenues and dramatically improved our fiscal situation,” he said.
Forty years takes us back to Ronald Reagan’s first term when, following across-the-board tax cuts like those passed under Trump, the economy took off, experiencing 4.6 percent growth in 1983 and 7.2 percent in 1984.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board highlighted in 2022 that the Trump tax cuts worked as intended.
After noting the record $4 trillion revenue haul in FY 2021, the board wrote, “In the first five months of fiscal 2022 through February, federal receipts climbed a remarkable 26% from a year earlier. That’s $371 billion more — to $1.8 trillion in five months. Individual income taxes rose $271 billion, or 38%, to $975 billion. Corporate income taxes rose 31%, or $28 billion, to $117 billion.”
“This flood of taxpayer dollars — which CBO estimates will hit $4.53 trillion this year — would not so long ago have been more than adequate to fund Washington’s spending needs,” the editors added. “The federal government in fiscal 2019 spent $4.4 trillion.”
Unfortunately, Biden and the Democratic Congress went on a deficit spending spree, far outstripping the revenue gains. With Republicans only narrowly controlling the House the last two years, not much could be done to repeal the new spending passed early in the Biden administration.
Total federal spending in FY 2024 was $6.75 trillion.
Trump laid out a five-point plan to get the nation’s economy back on track while speaking to the Economic Club of New York in September.
Spending will have to be cut significantly, but generating more revenue through economic growth will be a key component to getting the nation’s fiscal house back in order.
Trump’s plan involves reversing the Biden “anti-energy” crusade and cutting “crippling regulation” on businesses and slashing federal spending with the Department of Government Efficiency, which billionaire Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have agreed to co-chair.
Finally, the Republican said he would make the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent, with some added reforms, including lowering the corporate tax rate to 15 percent.
BREAKING: Trump just announced a HISTORIC plan to cut the corporate tax rate to 15% for companies that make their products in America
“To further support the revival of American manufacturing, my plan calls for expanded R&D tax credits, 100% bonus depreciation, expensing for new… pic.twitter.com/WjbhiECIbI
— George (@BehizyTweets) September 5, 2024
“To further support the revival of American manufacturing, my plan calls for expanded R&D tax credits, 100 percent bonus depreciation, expensing for new manufacturing investments, and a reduction in the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 15 percent, solely for companies that make their product in America,” he said.
So just as lowering the corporate tax rate to 21 percent made the U.S. market more competitive on the global stage during Trump’s first term, bringing it down further to 15 percent, but only for domestic production, will make it even more so.
It is a key part of Making America Great Again and ushering in the new Golden Age.
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