Subject: Politico: Top aide claims $7 trillion budget surplus from Trump's economic plans
From: "Freundlich, Christina" <[email-masked]>
To: Comm_D <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 May 2016 18:18:54 -0700

Yeah so sam clovis is no economic advisor.....

Top aide claims $7 trillion budget surplus from Trump's economic plans<http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/donald-trump-economic-adviser-tax-plan-sam-clovis-223086>
By BRIAN FALER and MATTHEW NUSSBAUM 05/11/16 04:27 PM EDT

A top economic adviser to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said his policies would generate a surplus of as much as $7 trillion in a decade, a wildly optimistic estimate that's unlikely to pan out.

In a sometimes bewildering explanation of Trump's agenda, Sam Clovis said Wednesday that increased economic growth would cover the vast majority of the cost of his plans, including a tax reform plan projected to cost $10 trillion over 10 years.

Story Continued Below

"Our proposals, what we think will happen, will lead us in fact to about a $4.5 to $7 trillion surplus at the end of 10 years, if all of our initiatives are put in place," Clovis told a conference sponsored by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. "Growth helps us a tremendous amount."

Clovis' estimates are implausible, and are likely to raise questions about the advice the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is getting on the economy.

Trump's current tax reform plan is projected to add $10 trillion to the debt over the next decade, on top of the $9 trillion in deficits the government is already projected to run.

So Trump would need to come up with more than $20 trillion in additional revenue - which would amount to increasing projected tax receipts by 50 percent - to realize his surplus.

Trump's tax plan is now being rewritten to reduce its cost, with one revision having a 10-year deficit score of $3.8 trillion.

Clovis disputed an estimate by the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation that the tax plan would cost $10 trillion, even after considering the economic benefits, saying the group does not use "dynamic scoring." In fact, the Tax Foundation is a major advocate of dynamic scoring, and incorporated it into its budget estimate.

"That's not what they've told me, and I've sat across the table from them," said Clovis, when asked about the discrepancy.

He also touted Trump's willingness to rewrite his tax plan as evidence of his flexibility as a dealmaker.

"What this really does is allows us to signal to people on both sides of the aisle that we're not going to come in there, fall on our swords over this," he said.

In fact, it makes some Republicans nervous because it leaves them uncertain which of the controversial changes he's proposed he will actually fight for.

"The general frustration from people like me is that any policy prescriptions he puts out seem to be very flexible," a Republican tax aide in Congress said. "Even policies he puts out he doesn't seem to own" so "it's hard to know which policies he intends to support."

"We look forward to him better articulating what his specific tax ideas are," the aide said.

Clovis is national co-chair and chief policy adviser for Donald Trump's presidential campaign. He is also a professor of economics at Morningside College in Iowa and has failed in campaigns for the U.S. Senate and to be Iowa state treasurer.

"I understand less about Trump's budget plan after listening to Mr.Clovis than I did before," David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution, tweeted.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/donald-trump-economic-adviser-tax-plan-sam-clovis-223086#ixzz48OrUlix8
Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook