Steve Moore at WSJ has a great interview with Phil Gramm, one of the Senate’s greatest conservatives. Gramm is now serving as McCain’s top economic adviser and is widely believed to be the man who would serve as Treasury Secretary, should McCain win in November.
Here’s Gramm on the left’s attacks on CEOs:
So what if a President Barack Obama were to impose 50% or 60% tax rates on these CEOs and other big earners? Mr. Gramm pounces: “When you help a company raise capital, to put its idea to work, and you create jobs, those jobs are the best housing program, education program, nutrition program, health program ever created. Look, if a man in one lifetime is responsible for creating 100 real jobs, permanent jobs, then he’s done more than most do-gooders have ever achieved.”
On the need to create pro-growth policies keep America competitive:
“Why is America the richest country in the world?” he asks. “It’s not because our people are more brilliant; it’s because we have a better free-market system. Why has Texas created 1.6 million jobs in the last 10 years whereas Michigan has lost 300,000 jobs and Ohio has lost 100,000 jobs? Because governance matters, taxes matter, regulation matters. Our opponents in this campaign are so dogmatic in their goal of having more government because they love the power it brings to them that they’re willing to let it impose costs on the working people that they say they want to help. I am not.”
On weak dollar monetary policy:
He adds that arresting the dollar’s slide has to do with restoring confidence in the U.S. economy, which means “doing things like balancing the budget, making the tax cuts permanent, and cutting the corporate tax rate, which encourages foreign investment. Trying to manipulate the dollar to cover up for bad policy is like taking a bunch of drugs to try to deal with bad health that is caused by a bad lifestyle.”
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