good afternoon everyone and welcome to the 79th meeting of the economic Club of New York my name is Bob Steel I'm chair of our club and partner and vice chair of Pell Weinberg Partners it's a pleasure to be with all of you here today before we begin let me extend a warm welcome to the students joining us virtually from Mercy University in NYU as well as the members of the 2025 Club class of New York economic Club fellows a select group of diverse Rising Next Generation business thought leaders the economic Club of New York is proud to stand as the nation's leading nonpartisan platform for discussions on economic social and political issues for more than a century the economic Club of New York has been a platform For Thought leadership and dialogue today we're excited to continue that tradition and have the extreme privilege to welcome my good friend and our fellow Club member The Honorable Scott bessent on January 28th of this year Scott was sworn in as the 79th Secretary of the Treasury of the United States as secretary he oversees the US treasury's mission to maintain economic strength fost fer growth manage our government's finances and protect the financial system from economic threats with more than 40 years in global Investment Management Scott is a recognized expert in currency and fixed income markets he previously served as the chief investment officer of Soros fund management and later founded his firm key Square Capital Management a global macro hedge fund he's also taught history at his alada Yale University and contributed to Leading economic journals a South Carolina native Scott holds a ba from Yale he and his family have supported NuMe numerous philanthropic efforts including the McLoud Rehabilitation Center Harlem Children Zone and Rockefeller University in addition to being a member of our club he's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and remains a strong advocate for financial literacy and education today's format will begin with a prepared remarks from the secretary followed by a fireside chat and we're especially excited and honored to have fellow Club member Larry cudow as our moderator Larry is the host of cudow on Fox Business Network and formerly director of the National Economic Council just a reminder to all of you that this discussion is on the record we do have a large number of media in the room and online and we will conclude the program today promptly at one o' so now with no further Ado please join me in welcoming our fellow Club member and Secretary of the Treasury to the podium Scott good Bob thank you for that and it's an honor to be speaking here today as the 79th Secretary of the Treasury of the United States it was only six months ago when President Trump laid out his vision to restore American economic prosperity to this very group it is a PR pre privilege to be here both as a member of the Trump Administration a recent member of the Trump Administration and a longtime member of the economic Club of New York to explain how we will deliver on the president's Vision today I'm going to address three critical pillars of President Trump's America First agenda America First is about more than just domestic or International policy more than just economic policy and national security policy it is a holistic program that serves the goal of improving the lives of every American to that end I will touch on three priorities for the trade Treasury Department Each of which is part of the overall agenda in this speech I will not address tax policy it is the foundation on which the three pillars rest Larry cudow and I are going to have a detailed discussion in the Q&A on tax policy including the president's PRI priorities on permanence current policy Baseline no tax on tips no tax on social security no tax on overtime and deductibility of loans on americanmade Autos first I will address a critical aspect of our domestic economic agenda responsibly deregulating the financial sector to accelerate what I call the reprivatization of the economy second maybe some of you have an interest in this President Trump's tariff policies have begun the process of reoriented reorienting our International economic relations I'll review our broader International Economic Policy goals from a first principles basis and discuss how tariff fit into the picture lastly Economic Security and National Security are inseparable at treasury our unique Financial tools are a critical component of US foreign policy I'll address how we are updating those tools and give the first realtime example here today at treasury we will lead a comprehensive and assertive effort across the administration to empower our nation's Banks to finance the economy's pursuit of job growth wealth creation and prosperity for all Americans I began my career as a financial sector analyst I quickly learned that a strong yet efficient regulatory framework is needed to mitigate risk and protect taxpayers hard dollar the regulatory overreach of the past few years in pursuit of political agendas has missed material risk styi growth and squashed Innovation the Trump Administration aims to make Financial regulation more efficient effective and appropriately tailored president Trump's recent executive order that requires the office of the controller of the currency the OCC the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation the F diic and the Federal Reserve to submit regulatory actions for review at the Office of Management and budget will improve analytical rigor and discipline while increasing accountability the supervisory failures at the heart of the 2023 banking crisis under President Joe Biden should have been a wake-up call as the fed's review noted its supervisors did not fully appreciate Silicon Valley Banks vulnerabilities as it grew in size and complexity when risk were identified they did not take sufficient steps to ensure that svb fixed those problems quickly the result was the third largest bank failure in United States history it was a supervisory failure our financial regulatory agenda must start with a fundamental refocusing of supervis priorities leadership must drive a culture that focuses on material risk-taking rather than box check checking as such I plan to use the financial oversight Council known as ESO and the president's working group on financial markets to drive change in our regulatory environment we need our financial Regulators singing in unison from the same song sheet to be clear this does not not mean consolidation of agencies but coordination via treasury such that our Regulators work in parallel with each other and Industry I'm excited about the dynamic leadership that the president has put in place across the financial Regulatory Agencies to drive this process our nation's largest banks many of whom are represented here today role as Financial inter intermediaries has been weighed down by by unduly burdensome regulatory requirements and a broken broken supervisory culture backward-looking policies in response to an under capitalized system predating the global financial crisis almost two decades ago should not drive today's approach Bank regulation and supervision should reflect the current needs of the economy for example the enhanced supplementary leverage restriction the SLR can be can risk becoming a binding constraint instead of a back stop the result is that the safest asset in the country us treasuries are not treated as such when leverage restriction is applied some have suggested that risk-free exposures like Central Bank Reserves and short dur duration treasuries should not be capitalized even under a risk and sensitive leverage Capital restriction While others have suggested an adjustment to The Leverage restriction buffer I'm not here today making a specific policy announcement only to make the point that rigorous analysis must be applied to these regulations if we are to appropriately supervise and regulate our banks given my small town routs I'm extremely focused on the success of America's Community Banks the 4,000 Community Banks operating Nationwide in every County in America are one of the most important reasons for the US economic performance in recent decades despite only holding 15% of Industry assets and deposits Community Banks make up 40% of loans to small businesses 70% of agricultural loans and 40% of commercial real estate loans they have strong relationships with their customers and tailor their loans to their neighbors businesses they've been increasingly hamstrung WR with burdensome supervision and regulation Community Banks are indeed overloaded with unproductive reporting requirements that have little to do with reducing material Financial Risk regulatory rating systems have suffered from Mission drift as Regulators apply subjective standards productive and synergistic mergers are often slowed due to immaterial supervisory issues regulations should serve to Ure Ure the safe and soundness of US Banks Drve affordability across goods and services and facilitate economic growth and we are going to accomplish this by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of our financial sector to underwrite and finance domestic activity deleveraging the public sector and Rel leveraging the private sector begin and end with smartly reinvigorating our regular regulated fin financial institutions on the international economic system president Trump's bold International economic agenda will also provide the backdrop for his domestic economic policies to succeed the president has already begun a campaign to rebalance the international economic system perhaps we're seeing an early big win with Germany's discussions to dramatically boost its military spending the international trading system consists of a web of relationships military economic political one cannot take a single aspect in isolation this is how president Trump sees the world not as a zero sum game but as interlinkages that can be reordered to advance the interest of the American people this is contrary to the last several decades when other countries acted to advance their own interest while our policy makers largely forgot about the tradeoffs of unconstrained trade misalignment the result was the United States provided a source of massive demand acted as Arbiter of Global Peace but did not receive adequate compensation for today the United States finds itself subsidizing the rest of the world's under spending in defense this is not just the security issue the United States also provides Reserve assets serves as a consumer of first and last resort and absorbs excess Supply in the face of insufficient demand in other country's domestic models this system is not sustainable access to cheap Goods is not the asset is not the essence of the American dream the American dream is rooted in the concept that any citizen can achieve Prosperity upward mobility and economic security for too long the designers of multilateral trade deals have lost sight of this International economic relations that do not work for the American people must be reexamined this is what tariffs are designed to address leveling the playing field such that the international trading system begins to reward Ingenuity security rule of law and stability not wage suppression currency manip manipulation intellectual property theft non-tariff barriers and dra Drconian regulations to the extent that another country's practices harm our own economy and people the United States will respond this is the America First Trade policy we are identifying Bad actors across a range of criteria not just tariffs applied to our exports but also non-tariff barriers laws which unfairly apply fines to our exporters government policies which undercut Global competition and suppress wages and currency manipulation that enables persistent trade surpluses these are not the only metrics in which our global trading partners should be scored that is increased burden sharing on security is critical amongst friendly Nations no longer should American tax dollars American military equipment and in some cases American lives be the sole bearers of upholding friendly trade and Mutual Security burden sharing is not a matter of offloading risk but a matter of all benefiting parties having interest in the system the shared interest ultimately strengthens the International System as the cost of disruption outweigh any benefits of disillusion a 2025 sanctions regime in the past I've said that Economic Security is National Security nowhere is this more evident than the US treasury's sanctions actions in his ecny speech last September president Trump expressed his view that overuse of sanctions could affect the US dollar Supremacy I couldn't agree more and would add that not unlike like the overuse of antibiotics the target becomes immune and mutates lacad isical sanctions simply create new markets which must then be sanctioned and so on a major factor that has enabled the Russian war Machin continued financing was the Biden administration's egregiously weak sanctions on Russian energy stemming from worries about upward pressure on US Energy prices during an election season and a craven political move National Security adviser Jake suin raised the Russian sanctions on the way out the door in January what was the point of substantial US military and financial support over the past three years without a commensurate and fome sanction support this Administration has kept the enhanced sanctions in place and will not hesitate to go all in should it provide leverage in peace negotiations president Trump's guidance sanctions will be used explicitly and aggressively for immediate Maximum Impact they will be carefully monitored monitored to ensure that they are achieving specific objectives last month the White House announced its maximum pressure campaign on Iran designed to collapse its already buckling economy the Iranian economy is in disarray 35% official inflation has a official inflation a currency that has depreciated 60% in the last 12 months and an ongoing energy crisis I know a few things about currency devaluations and if I were an Iranian I would get all of my money out of the real now this precarious State exists before our maximum pressure campaign designed to collapse Iranian oil exports from the current 1. 5 1. 6 million barrels per day back to the trickle they were when President Trump left office Iran has developed a complex Shadow network of Financial facilitators and black market oil shippers via a ghost Fleet to sell oil petrochemical and other Commodities to finance its exports and generate hard currency as such we have elevated a sanctions campaign against this export infrastru structure targeting all stages of Iran's oil supply chain we have coupled this with vigorous government engagement and private sector Outreach we will close off Iran's access to the International Financial system by targeting Regional parties that facilitate the transfer of its revenues treasury is prepared to engage in Frank discussions with these countries we are going to shut down Iran's oil sector and drone manufacturing capabilities we have predetermined benchmarks and timelines making Iran broke again will Mark the beginning of our updated sanctions policy watch this space if Economic Security is National Security the regime in tran will will have neither in conclusion the three pillars outlined today are linked by the primary vision of this Administration that every decision and policy of the United States government should serve the American people thank you all I look forward to engaging with you in Q&A and my discussion with Larry cuddler thanks to uh secretary Bon for an excellent uh excellent opening speech uh secretary let me begin of course you mentioned tariffs in your speech and U almost everybody on Wall Street and financial markets are obsessed with tariffs I would I would say crazed about tariffs and um I thought perhaps we could take this opportunity uh for some some basic educational work on the subject so um president Trump in his uh Speech to Congress on Tuesday uh very forcefully talked about changing the unfair trading system which you referred to to which you referred in your own speech uh this afternoon the president said there could be some one-time difficulties if I have that right one-time difficulties maybe you talk about one-time difficulties and perhaps the biggest question I hear all the time is are tariffs inflationary okay Larry there's a lot to unpack there right but I so let's start with a couple of things that I I would think over over the coming month we're going to have a couple of adjustments one was one that I talked about as as we deleverage the government sector relever the private sector which we'll talk about later and look uh can tariffs be a one-time price adjustment yes while I don't I've agreed not to talk about perspective fed policy going forward I would hope that the failed team transitory could get back together and think that nothing is more transitory than tariff if it's a one-time price adjustment and for those who say oh the tariffs are ATT tax they're inflationary said oh so the you're saying taxes are inflationary which I like to challenge a lot of my Democratic friends to so look as I said that the economic program is a whole of government holistic program and I think that we could get a one-time price adjustment but we've also gotten barring the moves yesterday and today in government bonds because of the European Bond blowout the Japanese Bond blowout U we have 10year interest rates are lower mortgage rates are lower since president Trump one came into office and as of last night crude prices are down 15% so ac across a Continuum I'm not worried about inflation yes and I want just one follow up on this um the president is a believer in reciprocity as see and this goes back many years when when I worked uh in in the first term reciprocity so people are as I say so many people in the financial world are worried um inflation and tariffs and all the rest of it but he has said also that if countries who have engaged in unfair trading practices would reduce their tariffs or their non-tariff barriers then we would all have a lower tariff rate I mean he said that for many years people don't seem to understand it I don't know if it's in the markets I wanted to put it out there it is possible over a period of time that tariff rates both here and abroad could come down is it not look as president Trump has said many times times tariff is his favorite word I would say that reciprocal is probably his second favorite word and I think we have to be open to the idea if you want to be a numo like Justin trau and say oh we're going to do this then it's going to tariffs are going to go up but if you want to sit back have a discussion with the Commerce Department us they all have my phone number too I am happy to have a discussion with our foreign counter parts that says that here's what we think you were doing and the tariffs are the actual easy part because we we know India does this on us motorcycles Germany does this on or EU does this on American cars that's a quantitative number but also what are non-tariff barriers Apple cannot sell the new iPhone 16 because of local content laws in Indonesia are are you manipulating your currency that are you suppressing the the value of that that are you unfairly subsidizing select Industries either either of you either of via Bank lending or suppressing labor markets and then five something that's come to our attention recently the EU is putting these gigantic fines on our US tech companies and you that's a form that's a non-tariff barrier too so we're going to look at that and then talk about what could happen on a reciprocal basis it's going to be Pat Uh much of that will come out April 2nd and we will then it's going to be path dependent based on our trading partners and there will be a discussion when prime minister cure stommer and team UK were in the White House on Thursday we had a very good discussion about getting going on all of this and more all right thank you very much for that I also wanted to Circle back you were mentioning Bond rates um there's a terrific bond market rally going on actually it's a very strong bond market rally more or less since the president was inaugurated uh I don't know what the tenure is today was about 415 412 how much 430 okay and it was nearly 5% uh a month or six weeks ago yep 484 but not that I was keeping score right I like to round I like round numbers I learned that from Trump you know just round numbers anyway uh the the point I'm making is could you talk a moment when you and I talked on an interview after your confirmation uh you said that you were focused on the 10-year bond rate uh president himself is focused on the 10year bond rate it has come way down mortgage rates have come way down and on top of that even while people are telling everyone that tariffs are inflationary and so forth um commodity prices are coming down oil prices are come down I just wanted if you talk for a moment or two about the market situation where rates are falling so the the two things that I've talked about President Trump has talked about uh you will notice that he has stopped calling for the FED to cut rates M because the purpose of cutting rates is to cut rates and when the FED cut rates they did the I will criticize past act before I was confirmed their passed action in September jumbo rate cut 50 basis points and two more subsequent rate Cuts 100 basis points the long end of the curve moved up so you know our our you is we want to focus on the tenure and what can we do as an Administration to bring that down and one of the things is sound fiscal policy so controlling government spending getting back the confidence one of the reasons that I'm sitting up here now not out in the audience is I became so alarmed by the fiscal stance that the previous administration had 5.
7 excuse me 6. 7% GDP spending we've never seen that during war time when we weren't in a war or we W weren't in a recession and we got to bring that down and let me be clear the US does not have a revenue problem we have a spending problem we we we we are we are right where we have been in the long-term averages 7 and half 18. 5% of revenues that hasn't changed what has changed is this blowout spending over the past 40 years deficit has averaged about three and a half% so we were at 21 22% of GDP spending previous administration blew it out to 25 some of the things they put in place if we hadn't grabbed them by the horns this thing was going to blow out even more and um so we've stabilized it we're bringing it down and we're going to go from there so let's stay with that for a moment I want to get to tax policy of course but let's just stay with that for a moment it's very important subject budget deficits and overspending um I'm going to sh over my shoulders my power Glenn hover whom I've known for many years and has been a great mentor uh Glenn asks uh you've wisely talked about the need to reduce the budget deficit in the US in addition to consideration of revenues and spending growth is important a higher rate of economic growth that doesn't require more deficits to pull off can reduce deficits and the debt to GDP ratio while raising living standards uh and unusually long question Glen but I'm going to go through it well the I I'm I'm out of breath what are the three what are the three best things we can do to um to uh reduce growth what are the three best things we can do now the previous administration did the three best things to reduce growth so or so the look I I I think give it your best shot okay uh well glar you're you're one of the people who's drilled this into me uh we got we got to pass the the tax cuts and job act this year uh the the sooner the the better and the president said he wants permanence in that so a uh the permanence in that part of that that the president mentioned at the address to Congress on Tuesday night was making the full expensing of Capital Equipment retroactive to January 20th right another thing that we are considering uh and I'll talk about it because the president's mentioned it is perhaps having full expensing will create a window and perhaps having full expensing of factories within that window so equipment and factories not all structures not airplane hangers not you stor but factories that create American jobs so we think that could be they very powerful so that would be one cutting regulation I think the real tax or the under explained under the noted tax in the American people has been these regulations Steve Mo and's committee to unleash Prosperity have some great statistics on that if you want to go to their website but not only does it slow down the Velocity in the economy it's been a real burden on American Business and American households I talked a little about the financial regulations but it it's across every sector and a lot of these they they the previous administration threw a lot more these on their way out the door so a ambitious and effective deregulatory agenda and then three um our proposals to bring down energy costs increase energy security and for us energy dominance because what we're seeing a lot of the affordability crisis that we have is not only the direct result of increase gasoline prices home heating prices but energy as you know Larry permeates every in the economy whether it's the transportation of food to grocery stores any kind of travel any products that are petroleum based so you know I I think that was a long answer but getting the tax deal done deregulating and the energy dominance just to stay with it elaborate first of all the president in the speech on Tuesday night call called for um 100% expensing retroactive to January 20th which I think is really quite extraordinary and would boost you know we've had very poor business fixed business investment spending for several years so that would be retroactive uh retroactive so any of you considering a project you can do it now because we're going going to get this bill passed and you know if you've got it and it's ready to go no reason to hesitate and part of this also the scenario for one big beautiful tax bill is the one big beautiful bill I mean that's what it is um the income tax rates would come you know would stay down the small business deduction would be restored if not more uh we talked about the expensing corporate tax rate could come to 15% made in America Goods 15% would put us at the very very low end of the oecd uh and um this would all see the tax-free tips tax-free overtime uh taxfree Senior Benefits and it would be made permanent it would be per permanent Scott this is what he's president call for and it could be scored on a current policy Baseline which means in effect we don't have to wor I mean the issue here is to stop A5 trillion tax hike there's no evidence that this tax bill and tax proposal would actually reduce revenues in fact just the opposite happened in the late uh 2017 bill look I I I think that certainty the closer we get to the tax bill expiring the more the UN what what I would call an uncertainty tax goes up so the sooner the sooner we can get this done I I Le something Larry I believe the you were part of it but it's called the big six so it's myself Kevin hasset the NC director Le leader th chairman of Senate finance committee Senator kpo speaker Johnson and The U uh chairman the of the house finance committee Jason Smith and and the six of us are going at this every day to try to get it done as soon as possible so that there is no glitch in what's going on because the longer we wait the bigger the chance that the unthinkable could happen and we could have this catastrophic tax increase and I know that President Trump believes that one of the reasons that the 2018 midterms were unsuccessful were was that it was an amazing tax bill you put together but that it wasn't the focus in the first half of the year and you believe and I know the president believes but you believe and I know that Glenn hubard believes that with good policies we should be able to project a 3% GDP growth uh Baseline out over the next 10 or 20 years I I I think so for for those of you when when I used to sit out there for 35 years I I thought I knew how Washington accounting worked and I was wrong now now that I'm inside the Sausage Factory just so everyone so we could kind of level set c c CBO scoring makes in Enron look conservative uh I mean it's it's crazy the the the things that they have and when Larry and I talk about currency current policy scoring that if we don't use current policy the current CBO Proto call and this is why I I think now being on the inside we've gotten into this spending mess into this tax mess that the the current Baseline any we I don't know why we're calling this extending the tax cuts it is the current tax policy extending the current tax policy that gets rescored extending current spending the current spending that got put in does not get rescored so guess which is easier to do you keep the spending going you have the tax policy the the tax levels you have to fight for every depending on when they expire so this is why permanence is so important yes thank you for that I think it's really really important Point um in so far as the big six is concerned what you're negotiating you and Kevin hasset and the uh House and Senate members you will produ there will be a trump budget and there will be a trump tax plan that will be formally submitted you know at some point in the near future yeah and Larry as you said so one thing we don't talk about a lot and I think we're going to is the Tariff income right now we have substantial tariff income from China that President Biden left on and um if we have new tariff income we won't be able to score that since it won't go through the legisl process but I could tell you that could be very substantial and if you think about when when people say oh tariffs are very are a regressive tax that well are they a regressive tax if you then use the income from tariffs to no tax on tips no tax on social security no tax on overtime making auto loans tax deductible the four those four policies which president Trump that put forward during the campaign all acrew to the bottom 50% of wage earners and working Americans so you know could you have a tariff policy that is in finance finances income tax cuts and real income increases for the bottom 50% I think that'd be pretty great have you ever met uh William McKinley I get the president sends me text messages on William McKinley I I I know I've been around but I ju I just missed him I don't know perhaps you uh commune with him uh I I I I don't I uh he uh okay I I I I I did in anticipation of discussing with the president I I did read his biography yes very interesting Robert Mary biography is very good very good okay um other questions I know we've mentioned tariffs uh Mrscretary but I want to do it again um we have questions for MrGlenn Hutchins okay uh there are two theories of tariffs the first is they are a negotiating tactic which involves short-term pain for average Americans but long-term gain uh then he goes on the second is that they might be considered sound fundamental policy what are your thoughts with respect to these two uh scenarios sure so couple of things in terms of tariff policy I I think one thing that has become clear to me over the past decade the past few years and I I set it out in an editorial that I wrote In The Economist is ricardian equivalence does not work if other countries have a very different economic and social policy so China is exporting their policies to us they have they decimated our manufacturing sector there's a new paper out called the China shock and said the communities recovered the workers haven't and so clearly the policy is not working for work for working Americans so China they exported their policies and tariffs are one way to push back on this so I I do think it is good policy and it is you know I I've said and and I say this because I think it's I know it's what president Trump believes he believes three things one that they it is a good source of revenues two it protects our important industries and the employees and three he's added the third leg to the stool and he uses it for negotiating you know I often we've talked about this a while back the the free trade theory of ricardian equivalence is a very interesting Theory but there is no equivalence as you just noted I'm was just want to highlight this the Chinese economic system and the Chinese political system is not equivalent to the United States we are a free market democracy they are a authoritarian socialist uh political entity yeah it's like C it's like California versus Texas okay well put okay very well put and I think that's the problem when you when you look at the World Trading System it is unfair because not equivalent yes foreign T foreign tariff rates are much higher than ours but many of these countries are just not equivalent we're not playing it's it's not only a non-level playing field for tariffs it's a non-level playing field for basic economies and basic polities and you have to deal that has to be changed the World Trade system World Trade Organization never took that into a count well it it hasn't Larry and the the only good thing that I could say about covid was it was a beta test for what we could have if we had a large scale economic disturbance or a hot war and it showed us that uh optimal Supply chains are not secure and I think it is made us refocus on many of the aspects when when you see President Trump talking about the rare earth strategic minerals re reshoring our our medicines reshoring the semiconductors all all of that is from the lessons we learned during covid of not having reliable trading partners partners and to to your point Larry we we can we can accumulate all of the Strategic mineral deposits that we need but China still processes 85 does 85% of the processing and every time a plant every time a private sector company tries to stand up a processing facility outside of China China drops their prices right and puts them out of business right there are several in the United States that are just sitting idle because the Chinese saw what was happening and dropped it and that's unacceptable yes um I just want to um another question for MrGlenn hutchon I want to be absolutely fair and balanced he's asking a principal component of the Trump campaign was that our deficits and debt are too high now you've talked about that but I want to give you just a another round on it yes I mean you know I just talked about that the the spending is too high and I I think that Larry you you you and I have talked about it I've seen Glenn hubber talk about it in ecny seminars but if you can change the growth trajectory then we can grow our way out of this debt and again another one of the reasons that I'm sitting up here not out there was I was AF afraid that four more years of like we just had would make it impossible to grow out of our debt that the accumulated debt stock would be just too big and you would have to go into a European style system you where you're working all the time just to pay off the debt but I I do think we are taking this seriously I do think this is the last chance Bar and Grill to get this done and you imagine if we think about a growth trajectory and and again back to CBO scoring CBO scoring scores in the projections they talk about or or they use 1.
7 1. 8% Baseline growth for 10 years whether you cut taxes or raise taxes so if we are sitting here in a year and we've just had the biggest the tax hike in history the CBO will not change their growth projection will not have changed it even though you I I don't even want to think what growth would look like could look like so if we could get above 3% if we could hold expenses in line flat or even if we could do the unthinkable if we think about a kind of a naive reductionist model of government g equals s Min us T spending minus taxes Republicans we like more spending but we just want to do it slower we like lower taxes then credits like higher taxes uh what if the S actually held flat or went down that'd be a pretty good story sure would you know I saw a study just just to finish this point um over 10 years the differential between 3% growth grow and 1.
