Trending searches: how much money did trump inherit
we got a big tax cut we've got big infrastructure spending both of course likely to happen because they were big big issues for president elect Donald Trump we want to discuss it though right now with one of the top of financial guys out there because a lot of fiscal conservatives are a little worried about it former CBO director Douglas hold akin on the deficit and it used to be one of the conservatives number one worries the US debt Douglas listen obviously we both understand supply-side economics for those who weren't around for Ronald Reagan the notion is you lower taxes people spend more money businesses spend more money it circulates in the economy and it more than makes up for initial and lost revenue is that formula going to work this time around I think the major thing to realize is that mr. Trump inherits from Barack Obama a budget that's fundamentally unsustainable so it's not the proposals per se that are the problem the problem is what he's inheriting it's a budget where entitlement spending is going to grow at numbers like 7% the economy is going to grow something like 4% that's just a mismatch that has to be fixed and so at some point there's going to have to be some real concern on the the entitlement spending side tax reform could help the economy grow faster sensible infrastructure programs can help the economy grow faster but neither of those things is going to make up for the fact we have a big entitlement spending rule so let's talk about entitlements what do you consider any entitlement Social Security right sure you want to go right down the list the Medicare's the Medicaid Social Security's Affordable Care Act's so so folks watching this show particularly those over 50 years old might have just owned a tomato at the screen they're saying Doug we paid we paid into that man that's not an entitlement that's that will for that's our money don't try to tiller from us the problem is that current law you know our promise to our seniors is to cut benefits 25 percent across-the-board in under two decades so that's a terrible way to run a program seniors did pay into it they deserve a better program so my advice would be for them to stop throwing Tomatoes and give the Congress some incentive to get a fix so that they get back a sensible retirement ultimately though the fact is some generation may have to take a hit on this I mean let's be honest it's if we start talking about reforms maybe they kick in if you're 40 and under you get you start to get the payments at 70 but we're living longer perhaps some charismatic politician out there can't convince the American public but so far no one was in touch the third rail of politics I think that's true so far no one has but there's a real opportunity here to surprise both generations that the current generation not get their benefits cut and future generations don't think they're going to get anything out of Social Security and so if you fix a program like Social Security you surprise both to the upside and that's that's the political key all right so let's talk about the you use the word sensible I caught that if the trillion dollars over 10 years not sensible I don't know what the right number is and I'm not sure that's the best way to think about it we know that we have some key points of congestion in our transportation system from ports to rails and from rails to trucks and and those kinds of transfers so the way I think about it is what do we want to accomplish well we want to accomplish better economic performance that means national connectivity that's something the federal government can help on and then at the local level we've got a lot of manufacturing in big metropolitan areas if we want to get better manufacturing performance we got to take care of the infrastructure so there's two big problems federal government to take care of one and they could help finance they to help than the other before I let you go the tax cuts being talked about for individuals and businesses and let's say we can wipe off about 40 or 50 billion and those onerous regulations could that get us to a four percent GDP near-term I think you could get a couple of quarters or four I don't think it's probably the best target for the trend but we can do a lot better than two and we've been stuck at two for far too long Charles Amen brother thank you very much Doug appreciate it thank you