(NewsNation) — Grover Norquist, the Republican founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform, tells “NewsNation Prime” he believes President-elect Donald Trump’s tariffs and tax cut plans will help America’s deficit decline.
Trump has pledged to implement several economic initiatives, including a plan to eliminate personal income taxes in exchange for at least a 10% tariff on all important imported goods and a 60% tariff on products imported from China.
“He has talked about those using those as a negotiating tool to keep China from stealing our technology, to get China to allow our goods and services to go into China … we need to have more pressure on China to have them accept American goods and services, which they’re not doing now,” Norquist said.
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“As a negotiating tool, tariffs can be helpful,” he added.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates Trump’s plan to expand his Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 would, in 2024 dollars, cost $3.2 trillion over 10 years and $10.3 trillion over the next 30 years.
If the cuts aren’t expanded, taxes could rise as much as 4% for certain income brackets, while the child tax credit could be cut in half. According to the nonpartisan Peterson Institute for International Economics, if these tariffs were enacted, a typical middle class family would see $1,700 in additional costs yearly.
“Free market economists recognize that Trump’s pro growth policy is the way to keep the deficit down. Economic growth is the most important thing we can do to bring the deficit and the debt down,” Norquist said.
The Penn Wharton Budget Model, a nonpartisan research project at the University of Pennsylvania, shows that the Trump tax proposal benefits American workers in various income brackets following an election in which many voters considered the economy their top concern.
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The Wharton project also estimates that the Trump tax plan would increase the nation’s primary deficits by $5.8 trillion over 10 years on a conventional basis and by $4.1 trillion on a dynamic basis, the report finds.
Click here to see how Trump’s proposed tax plan would impact Americans across multiple tax brackets.
NewsNation’s Jeff Arnold contributed to this report.