Subject: RE: Video Request: Tom Cotton at Joint Economic Committee Hearing
From: "Yoxall, Collin" <[email-masked]>
To: Research_D <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2016 09:15:21 -0700

Cotton on the estate tax:

Regardless of the threshold through the exemption, you still often see families having to break up family businesses to pay the tax, what's the right solution to that if -- if it's not simply repealing the estate tax which as you might guess would be my proposal?

COATS: Senator Cotton?
COTTON: Thank you.
Dr. Laffer, Mr. Hodge, one of the two of you said that obviously taxes are necessary and always have been the (inaudible) legitimate and need full functions of government. Some are better and some are worse. Would you care to characterize, which ones are the worse in terms of their impact on economic growth? What alternatives might be and...
HODGE: Sure.
COTTON: ...whether they're politically feasible?
HODGE: Yeah, in fact, the -- the OECD -- economists at the OECD have looked at this in a very interesting study a few years ago. They found that corporate income tax isn't -- taxes on capital are the most harmful taxes for economic growth followed by taxes on income, followed by taxes on consumption, and finally taxes on property. And why is that? It all has to do with the mobility of the factor in the economy.
Capital is the most mobile factor in the economy, thus, the most sensitive to high tax rates then you see that with our corporate tax system.
Income taxes are -- are less -- slightly less sensitive because people are less mobile. I can't follow by employer to Ireland to take advantage of that 12.5 percent corporate tax rate. And obviously, property tax, you can't move property, so it's less sensitive to tax policy. So keeping that in mind should guide our tax reform measures as we go about trying to reform the tax system. And that's why things like full expensing or such a powerful engine for growth is because it's reducing the cost of capital.
COTTON: Dr. Laffer?
LAFFER: Totally -- I totally agree. Corporate and personal income taxes I would rank the order the other way around. The literature has a great deal of say on this. And progressive income taxes are killers. The more successful you are the higher the rate you pay, which really teaches you how to change where you play, live where you report, how you report.
If you're facing a 50 percent marginal income tax rate, you're going to spend 50 percent of your time trying to reduce your tax bill rather than trying to earn more income. It's just simple Math, and the literature is unambiguous that the income taxes -- corporate and personal -- are the key drivers, and progressive taxes are much worse than flat taxes.
COTTON: It sounds like you are saying to Senator Klobuchar is revealing some of your research about people moving from higher tax states...
LAFFER: Yeah.
COTTON: ...to lower tax states.
LAFFER: Well, I just finished my book, which is the Wealth of States, which I dropped 430 pages of combining all the literature on -- and all the data on states. As you all know, I do Rich States, Poor States every single year. I have done it forever. We looked at all of this, and we ranked them. And it's unambiguous, how important taxes are for movement of people, movement of jobs, and prosperity. If you don't believe me, look at West Virginia unfortunately.
COTTON: Dr. Bernstein, so the hierarchy we just heard from Mr. Hodge and Dr. Laffer -- capital, income, consumption, property -- would you care reflect on that?
BERNSTEIN: Yeah, I'm much less moved by all of the discussion on how responsive capital income is to these changes. I -- I think the evidentiary record is quite different than has been represented. So, for -- if you look at the relationship between real investment and changes in capital tax rates, there's just nothing there. So I think that they're very much exaggerating that.
If I may say, where I think I would answer your question, where I'd make a change is on the estate inheritance side of the code. Actually, Art might agree with me with this. The extent to which we favor inherited income, step-up basis, I'm sure you're familiar with. Step-up basis is a huge waste of money, and it's also an economic distortion because it creates a lock-in effect. So that's where I'd start.
COTTON: Mr. Hodge, you look like you wanted to respond.
HODGE: Well, I kind of find it interesting that when people say that they're unmoved by taxes on capital and wouldn't affect that (inaudible) then people complain about profit shifting of U.S. companies out of the United States to lower tax jurisdictions.
The reason we have profit shifting and -- and we've seen economists such as Kim Clausing demonstrated that about a third of our corporate tax base is being moved out of the U.S. because of our high corporate tax rate. So the key to moving that tax base back into the U.S. is to cut our corporate tax rate.
COTTON: Dr. Bernstein?
BERNSTEIN: The extent of tax evasion and tax avoidance is remarkably insensitive to changes in the tax rate. Now, it may be the case where Scott and I might agree that maybe the case is if you took our corporate tax rate down to 10 or 12 percent, you'd see the kind of differences he's talking about. But the -- the damage of that would do to our fiscal accounts and the knock-on damage it would do the rest of the economy would make that prohibited.
So again, I really think you have to be driven by the empirical record here and you simply don't see the kind of (inaudible) responses that not only are these guys talking about, but they're erroneously building into their models.
COTTON: Do you have anything to say about the distribution of Dr. Laffer and Mr. Hodge's hierarchy of...
BERNSTEIN: Yeah.
COTTON: ...capital income (inaudible)?
BERNSTEIN: I think that there -- I -- I agree with them, and -- and I think there's wide bipartisan agreement. And again this agrees a little bit with Scott just said that the corporate side of the code is a mess, and that our statutory rate is -- is uncompetitively high. I think the difference between us is that I recognize that a very few corporations in the multinational space pay anything like that.
LAFFER: Yeah. But....
COTTON: Dr. Laffer?
LAFFER: ... it's not just what they pay, it's what the expenses are that they go through to avoid paying. And what I've done here on this is that shown that there are huge expenses that companies pay, but they don't get collected by the government in tax revenues. What we want to do and what might pay for the -- and the record does is try to eliminate or reduce the difference between the cost of the company and what the actual government collects. And -- and what happens is people will spend fortunes getting around the taxes so that the government doesn't get the revenue and the damage is done to the companies as well. And that just makes no sense whatsoever.
If you're going to pay taxes, at least let the government collect it, but that's not what these tax codes.
And if I can say, Jared, I mean, very seriously, the -- the complexity of these tax codes and all of this stuff you're talking about is just disastrous, and you used Kansas as the example, which is really unfair because I've done the response to the IBD response. You know those numbers.
Look at North Carolina, look at Indiana, look at these states that have done major tax reform. Look at Texas versus California, look at Florida versus New York, look at Tennessee versus Kentucky, look at any of these states. For goodness sake, the evidence couldn't be more obvious.
COTTON: Yeah.
LAFFER: It takes -- it takes -- I mean, (inaudible) the worst example to be able to try to convolute these results into something that goes the opposite direction.
BERNSTEIN: Well, let me...
LAFFER: No, let me finish first.
BERNSTEIN: Sorry, sorry.
LAFFER: You cannot tax an economy and the prosperity. You just plain can't. Everyone knows that from first grade on. And the Tax Foundation has done wonderful work on this. I would just disagree with them if they're not quite as strong a result as I think they really are, but, hey, I love you. But it's just silly to argue that taxes don't matter. They matter and matter a lot and everyone knows that, everyone who's been in business knows that.
BERNSTEIN: Thank you for -- if I may (inaudible) time.
COATS: We have the luxury of more time here.
COTTON: Well, I'm -- I'm having fun...
(LAUGHTER)
COTTON: ...and I have -- I have the floor until someone else comes in.
COATS: Senator Cotton and I are having...
COTTON: Yeah.
COATS: ...a great time.
COTTON: Dr. Bernstein...
COATS: No, he's still on the floor. He's going to give you some time (inaudible).
BERNSTEIN: Well, I appreciate the opportunity because I think there actually is some -- some common views here that I -- I'd like to amplify. I suspect you share them, Senator, which is that the -- the problems with the corporate side of the code that were just described by Art strikingly is spot-on. And the expenses that businesses have to go to to bend themselves into a pretzel -- I mean, last I looked, G.E. which I don't think makes tax law has something like 1,000 tax lawyers on staff. And -- and just like Mr. Grossbauer was saying, you know, that's inefficient.
That said, it's not that the politicians and the people on this panel disagree with broadening the base and lowering the corporate rate, it's all of the industries and their lobbyists who would get dinged because let's face it, if you're going to do tax revenue neutral corporate tax reform, and that's the lowest bar, I think we need more revenue. You're going to have winners and losers, and the losers...
COTTON: Yeah.
BERNSTEIN: ...don't like it. We can sit around all day and agree.
Secondly, look, Art and I had a fundamental factual disagreement on the state-based evidence. We're not going to hash it out here, but I'd be happy to submit evidence to the Committee in -- in very much support of states that have, in fact, raised their taxes, doing a lot better than states that have lowered them and -- and vice-versa. It goes both ways.
COATS: Well, the Committee, I can tell you would welcome you -- both of you submitting that -- that's what we're here. We're not the Joint Tax Committee, but we're the Joint Economic Committee that we do have a tax component, so we -- we would appreciate all the information either one of you can give us.
Senator Cotton, take whatever time...
COTTON: I'll keep rolling.
COATS: Yeah.
COTTON: ...if no one else (inaudible).
(LAUGHTER)
Well, Dr. Bernstein, what about the fairness of that hierarchy? So here at capital income, rich people can have more of that than poor people; consumption is a higher percentage of poor people's income than is for rich people; and property has a -- a smaller variance, either, you know, a small single family home to a billionaire's home who can only have a certain number of (inaudible) and bathrooms, and car garages and all the rest, but income can be infinite. Do you have concerns that the hierarchy that Dr. Laffer and Mr. Hodge have laid out is not fair?
BERNSTEIN: Well, I think that -- it's a good question because I think they were largely answering questions vis-a-vis growth in their hierarchy. And I think that when we talk about fairness or distribution, I do think you probably have to flip that hierarchy considerably.
The fact that capital income is largely concentrated among the wealthy, the ownership therein, and that it's taxed at a privilege rate builds -- builds in a level of unfairness or regressivity into a -- into a tax code.
Now broadly, our tax code is progressive, but that's on the income side. If you actually look at the benefits of favorable treatment of capital-based income, they flow exclusively to the top 20 percent. And within the top 20 percent, the top 10, five, one percent, so that -- that is a regressive problem.
COTTON: And, Dr. Laffer or Mr. Hodge, would you care to respond?
LAFFER: Do you want to go first? Go ahead.
HODGE: Yeah. One of the challenges of tax reform is that what's politically popular and that is tax cuts for individuals, it's not really the biggest driver of economic growth. And what's not politically popular and that is cutting capital taxes is the biggest driver. So you have this -- this sort of, I think, conflict there between politics and -- and in good economics. And somehow trying to balance that is -- is one of the challenges of fundamental tax reform.
LAFFER: Yeah. Let me if I can just say on the income distribution and what's going on, high tax rates are not paid by the top one percent of income earners -- end of discussion. If you look at the effective tax rate, the top one percent, it's flat all the way across with statutory rates going up and down and all over the place. They find exemptions, loopholes. That's why I used the Warren Buffett example. It's a perfect example of how you get around your taxes and how he personally has gotten around his taxes -- all legal.
When you look at the migration of income from high income tax states to low income tax states, the wealthy move from California to Texas. They do. All of that you can see how many walks or, in my book of the Wealth of States, we've documented IRS data from the beginning of time. If you look at the estate taxes, those estate taxes filed in states that don't have an estate tax and those that do have an estate tax, they're three times as much in a state that does not have an estate tax than they are in states that have state taxes, and the size of them are twice as large.
People really like their own money and I will do go to great lengths to get around it. It's pure and simple common sense. And that's what they do.
And, Jared, all your talk notwithstanding, if you look at North Carolina, we cut the highest tax rate by 2.5 percentage points. We cut the welfare generosity variables. We cut the eligibility. And now look at North Carolina, huge surplus is going there and prosperous and all the boycotts have been gone there a long time, and that's McCrory as you know.
If you look at the other states, Indiana, your state, look at what's happened with -- with Mike Pence and before Mike -- whatchamacallit...
COATS: Mitch Daniels.
LAFFER: ...Mitch Daniels, I mean, it's great. Look what happened with right-to-work states are -- if you look at these states, that's the way it's going. Look at right-to-work states growth versus non-right-to-work states growth. You can see it clearly. You can see it with income taxes.
Jared, I just don't know where you're getting your evidence because the academic literature is replete with the examples I'm describing. I could send you hundreds and hundreds of articles that show this. Now they show it in different ways, different magnitudes, but no one thinks that raising tax rates increases growth.
(CROSSTALK)
COATS: I feel like the moderator at a debate...
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
LAFFER: I mean, Jared is a good...
COATS: ...(inaudible) presidential debate here.
LAFFER: ...he's wrong on...
COATS: You -- you have raised Dr. Bernstein's name again and that he -- he has 30 seconds to respond.
BERNSTEIN: Well, thank you. Well, thank you. And look...
(CROSSTALK)
HODGE: Could somebody pick on me please?
BERNSTEIN: I'm sorry?
HODGE: Could somebody pick on me please?
(LAUGHTER)
BERNSTEIN: I think I can arrange that, Scott.
The -- you just -- as Art doesn't want to talk about Kansas, Art -- Art was instrumental in -- in nudging Kansas to embrace the kind of supply-side tax cuts. He's been arguing our absolutely, unequivocally associated with higher growth. He -- he predicted, quote, "an immediate and lasting boost to the Kansas economy." Not only has the budget they have been seriously underfunded, the state's education system is in trouble there. It's widely recognized that the tax cuts were the reason for that.
And as I've mentioned, job and GDP growth have -- have really done poorly relative to neighboring places including places that actually either increased or certainly did not lower their tax at the Kansas Legislative Research Department's projections suggested the economy is going to remain weaker relative to the overall U.S. economy for the foreseeable future. This is an experiment. In fact, Governor Brownback called it an experiment, and it's a failed experiment and you can bang the table with your shoe all day, but it's -- the data tell you what they tell you.
COTTON: Dr. Bernstein, rather than talking about Kansas, let's talk about Arkansas for a minute since we pronounced the last six words of that name correctly.
(LAUGHTER)
UNKNOWN: Oh.
COTTON: You brought up the stepped-up basis for the estate tax. Dr. Laffer just brought it up as a critique. I want to talk about the impact it has, in particular, in rural areas. I think a lot of people and they think about the estate tax have the image of, you know, wealthy investors. You have highly liquid assets like marketable securities that when they pass away could be easily sold to pay off taxes, not always the case in rural areas.
A classic example in Arkansas would be timber, forestry products. You own a lot of land, you have a lot of trees. It takes 40 years to make a tree. Very asset high, very cash poor. Regardless of the threshold through the exemption, you still often see families having to break up family businesses to pay the tax, what's the right solution to that if -- if it's not simply repealing the estate tax which as you might guess would be my proposal?
BERNSTEIN: Well, you know, the exemption for the estate tax for couples is -- is $11 million. And the estate tax hits 0.2 percent of -- of estates, not two percent, 0.2, so two out of a thousand. And for those who hit the -- got hit by the average tax rate is 17 percent. So, I would consider that to be, if anything, an extremely fair and even a regressive treatment. So, I would probably push the other way as suggested in the President's Budget to lower that threshold. He suggests a threshold of $7 million for couples instead of hitting 0.2 percent of estates that would hit 0.3.
And I think that would be -- that -- that would be a smart thing to do in the sense of -- of revenue -- meeting some of our revenue needs.
COTTON: Dr. Laffer?
LAFFER: Yeah, I just -- I think he missed your question. I think you were talking about estate -- estate taxes and what happens to them.
(CROSSTALK)
COTTON: No, I was talking primarily about...
LAFFER: Oh, you were federal...
COTTON: Same economic (inaudible).
LAFFER: Yeah, well, the movement amongst estate taxes by states is just unambiguous. Rich people move to lower estate tax states, and they take their money and their jobs with them and they move a long time ahead of time because they aren't quite sure when they're going to die, and they do it in mass.
The best one of all was a very famous senator, a guy named Howard Metzenbaum from my home state of Ohio. And Howard Metzenbaum, six weeks before he died, moved to Florida where there was no estate tax. And he wasn't wrong to move to Florida, he just was wrong in espousing an estate tax for everyone else except himself. And we see it all the time. It's -- rich people move from California, and if they don't move they shelter their income. That's what they do, and it's all these data are just clear as bells.
And, you know, when you look at the U.S., if you take tax revenues from the top one percent of income earners, we have the data back to 1930. We've got it all -- by account. If you look at it, when we've cut statutory rates, revenues from the top one percent of income earners rises as a share of GDP, which also rises very rapidly. When we've raised rates, tax revenues from the top one percent have declined as a share of GDP.
In 1980, tax revenues from the top one percent of income earners was 1.5 percent of GDP. In 2006, it was 3.2 percent of GDP with all those tax rate reductions.
If you look at that period, it's unambiguous rich people respond to tax rates and they pay more money at lower rates within reason. And that's why we want a low rate, broad-based flat tax so we collect those monies from the rich people and not just kept going to shelters and not pay any taxes like Warren Buffett.
COATS: Senator Cotton...
COTTON: I am exhausted.
COATS: Good.
(LAUGHTER)
COTTON: (inaudible) of questions. You know, we thank you all very much (inaudible).

From: Yoxall, Collin
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2016 4:01 PM
To: Research_D
Subject: RE: Video Request: Tom Cotton at Joint Economic Committee Hearing

Would only note that Cotton supports repeal of the estate tax.

From: Yoxall, Collin
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2016 4:01 PM
To: Research_D
Subject: RE: Video Request: Tom Cotton at Joint Economic Committee Hearing

Witness: Laffer, Hodge, Grossbauer, Bernstein

Cotton: taxes are necessary. Some good or some worse. Describe?
Hodge: corporate, capital taxes are harmful, then income, consumption then property. All about mobility of taxes. We should keep that in mind. Full expensing helps put  engine in economy.
Laffer: progressive income taxes are killers. Incentives people trying to get around this.

Cotton: saying to Sen Kloubechar about people moving to low taxes?
Laffer: its umbrageous how important this is when people are moving.

Cotton: Bernstein on hierarchy of taxes?
Bernstein: more skeptical of movement of capital. Would make changes around inheritance. Step up basis distorted.
Cotton: hodge?
Hodge: we have profit shifting b/c of high corporate rate.
Cotton: bernstin?
Bernstein: avoidance isn't changed by lowering rate.

Cotton: anything berstein on the hierarchy?
Bernstein: corporate rate is a mess. The rate is high.
Cotton: laffer?
Laffer: but its also about expensing. Want to reduce cost to company and what people collect. Kansas criticism is unfair Bernstein. Evidence is obvious. Cant tax into prosperity.

Cotton: I have the floor please continue lol.

Bernstein: there are common views here. the panel does are on lowering rates and broadening base. Laffer and I have a factual difference disagreement. And will be happy to submit evidence to the record

Sen Coats: happy to have it.

Cotton: want to talk about equality of all those taxes? Fairness?
Bernstein: Laffer and Hodge talking about growth. Broadly taxes are progressive; favorably in benafits is regressive.
Hodge: personal tax cuts is popular but doesn't help growth. Capital cuts help. Balancing the politics and the policy is hard.
Laffer: high rates are not paid by the higher earners. People like their own money and will move around to avoid taxes. Right to work states grow more. Berstein, I don't know where you are getting your evidence.

Coats: you have raised berstein's name-response?

Berstein: Laffer does not talk about Kansas. Education in KS in in trouble. KS is a failed experiment.

Cotton: lets talk about AR. Impact on rural areas and estate taxes. People have image of rich people. AR example is timber farmers, businesses. What is the right solution? If not repealing estate?
Bernstien: exemptions for couples is $11M. I would push the other way to lower the exemptions. Would meet revenue needs.
Laffer: people move to lower taxes states. Howard Mexenbauer moved to Florida to avoid estate taxes. When we cut rates, we get more revenue.

Cotton: I tap out. Thank you.

From: Yoxall, Collin
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2016 4:00 PM
To: Research_D
Subject: Video Request: Tom Cotton at Joint Economic Committee Hearing

Starts at 19:00 mark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRghTO5Bo9U

Collin Yoxall
Research Associate, DNC
Office: 202-863-8126 X8126
Mobile: 334-703-1690
[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>