The Biggest Boost to the Greatest Economy Ever

White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Steve Myron joins to break down the details behind the so-called “big, beautiful bill” touted by President Trump. Myron outlines how the legislation extends the 2017 tax cuts, avoiding what would be the largest tax hike in American history if allowed to expire. He explains how the bill will lower taxes on families, businesses, tips, overtime, and even Social Security, while driving massive economic growth. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to the Buck Sexton Show podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Let make sure you subscribe to the podcast on the
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
So what's actually in the big beautiful bill?

Speaker 4 (00:23):
We have been told it is big and beautiful, and
we've certainly heard a lot from President Trump and the
White House about how great it is going to be.
Let's dive into some of the specific some of the
substance here. Steve Myron is with us. He is the
chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors to the White House,
and he's an economist. He's got a PhD from Harvard.

(00:43):
Very impressive, fellow. Thank you for being with us, sir.
Let's just start with this. What are the main takeaways
that the general public should have about why this bill
is going to be great for the economy.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Look, thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
You know, first off, the bill is big and beautiful
and it's going to be great for America. The number
one thing that does is extend the President's historic tax
cuts from twenty six seventeen. Tax cuts on families, tax
cuts and households, and tax cuts on firms. Now, what
those tax cuts did was they created an economic boom
in the United States in the first term, President Trump's

(01:20):
first economic boom, and they're going to in the continuation
of those tax cuts and the further tax relief for
American families and firms that's in the bill, are going
to create a boom in President Trump's second term, president
Trump's second economic boom. Now what we do in this
bill is, first of all, we keep rates low. We
prevent we prevent rates from snapping back up like they
would if we did nothing. And then we also provide

(01:41):
additional tax relief to American families and to American firms
that will incentivize increased labor supply because there were reward
families for working more and by letting them keep more
of the money they earn in their pockets. And they'll
incentivize increase investment in the American economy by firms because
there will be bonus because there will be incentives for

(02:02):
investing in equipment, investing in factories, and the production of
new equipment and new factories increases what economists call the
capital stock in the economy. That's equipment that you use
to make stuff factories, and that creates more wages, that
creates higher wage growth to So what the bill does
is it keeps tax rates low. It provides further incentives
to improve the economy, further tax relief, keeping money in

(02:23):
families pockets week in, week out, providing incentives for firms
to do investment, and it'll create an economic boom that
will look just like the first term and the biggest
boom the country's ever seen.

Speaker 4 (02:32):
When you say keep tax rates low, I mean that
sounds great to me. I like low taxes. I know
I'm not alone there, But so does that mean that
there are individual rates that are going to either stay
where they are or be lower, like like give me
a little more and for you know, if you're listening
to this and you know you own or work at

(02:53):
a small business and you've got a household, they'd come
of one hundred and fifty grand.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Are you going to feel those tax cuts?

Speaker 1 (02:58):
How? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (03:01):
So, first of all, if the bill doesn't pass, it's
going to be the biggest tax site in American history,
because the twenty seventeen tax cuts will go away and
tax rates will snap back to what they were in
the Obama administration, which was not a tax friendly environment
and not a friendly environment for business and for families
because those tax rates were much higher. That's a four
trillion dollar tax like if we don't pass the bill,

(03:21):
which is part of why it's so important to do
it now. Keeping those tax rates low is good, Extending
those tax rates is good. But there's further tax relief
that the President has promised also, and part of that
is the president's promises of no tax in overtime is
that people can work more and get paid for working
more without having the government take the money out of
their pocket.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
No taxes on tips, so.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
That workers working working gig jobs, working for in tip
jobs can be incentivized to work more and again keep
more of the money in their pockets every week.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
And no taxes on Social Security.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
That's tax bonus for seniors to help this very hard
this group that was very hard hit by inflation and
help them recoup some of their losses that were due
to inflation.

Speaker 4 (04:01):
And so all of these yeah, I do interrupt you,
I just I mean, just the no tax on tips.
I remember Trump when he was running on that, when
when now president then candidate Trump was running and he
had this idea and everyone said, wow, that's a great idea.
And then there was a whole. But is he really
going to do that. It sounds like if this bill
goes through, he's really doing that. That's actually happening.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Oh, he's really he's really doing it. He's absolutely doing it.
And just as important as the as the provisions for
that will help families, that will help individuals and individual
income taxes, are the provisions for businesses.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
And these are what I was talking about before.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Full expensing on equipment investment, full expensing on factory investment.
These are things that will get firms to invest more
in America. And when you invest more in America, you
hire more people. And so if you look at this
job we just so if you look at this, this
big beautiful bill, an effect on jobs in the economy.
We just released a really big paper on this at
the Council of Economic Advisor State. If you go to

(04:57):
the White House website, you go to the Council of
Economic Advisor's website, the CEA website, you can see we
just put a paper on our website analyzing the one
big beautiful bill, analyzing the effects of all these tax
and centers of the economy. And let me just give
you the number, okay, because the numbers are incredibly are
incredibly great, and they're going to be an economic boom
in this country.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
It's going to.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Raise GDP by four point two to five point two percent, right,
that's the size of the total economy.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
It's going to create.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Seven million new jobs, seven million new jobs as a
result of passing this bill. And it's going to boost
take home pay for the for a typical family of four,
so typical family with two kids, typical family for take
home pay is going to go up by eight to
thirteen thousand dollars, eight thousand to thirteen thousand dollars as
a result of passing this bill. Right, And that's a
result of keeping the tax rates slow, preventing them from

(05:44):
stapping back, and from the new tax provisions that incentivize
more work from more work from on overtime end tips
that incentivize more investment in the country, more equipment, building factories, hiring, expanding,
more capital stock, more productive workers, and all those are
great things, and they're all going to go into the economy.
And this paper lays it out one by one what
each provision does.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
Now, talk to me about.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
Cost control, rolls cuts, anything having to do with the
mission of because you've laid out all this stuff, and
I mean, for example, the family of four with a
five to eight thousand I think it was five to
eight thousand, you said more in their pocket or eight
to twelve eight I'm sorry, eight to thirteen thousand more.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
GDP goes up by about five percent.

Speaker 4 (06:26):
Yeah, yeah, that that's very real to people, right, I mean,
I know that for a lot of my radio listeners,
for example, you tell them that they're going to have
another ten grand plus let's just call it in their
pocket at the end.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Of the year, that that's really meaningful. So that's fantastic, huge.

Speaker 4 (06:42):
But a big part of this as well with the
new administration has been getting rid of the waste, fraud
and abuse, the unnecessary spending. What can you tell us
about whether it's cost controls, cuts raining things in Where
is that in the bill?

Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah, so there is there.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
There are cuts to waste, front of abuse in the bill,
and these are in These are in a variety of
government programs, in some transfer programs, some insurance programs, getting
you know, making making government agencies do.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
More with less people.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
Every day, every business in the country is under pressure
to produce the same things with fewer inputs with less costs,
and there's no reason the government can't do the same.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
The government should be able.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
To improve its status, the quality of its of its offerings,
improve the quality of its services over time, but do
so more efficiently and more cheaply, just as a business does.
And Congress is putting cuts to those to those waste
fraudened abuse in the bill. The Department of Government Efficiency
DOGE is finding more opportunities to cut waste fraudened abuse,
and these are through These are through incentivizing workers to

(07:43):
leave the federal workforce, through cuts that don't need to
through cuts to spending that don't need to be made,
finding fraudulent numbers in in social security or or medicare
combating fraud that sometime is perpetrated, sometimes is perpetrated by
by foreign adversaries, you know, sort of just milking money
out of out of American transfer programs. And all of

(08:04):
this serves to bring down to bringing them the deficit
and control the deficit.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
So this goes to you see a lot of great
things happening.

Speaker 4 (08:13):
How do how does the current situation of tariff's and
international trade factor in Now I'm shifting a little bit.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
I know this is all tied together.

Speaker 4 (08:22):
Shifting a little bit from the big beautiful bill to
where the administration is on tariffs and what you see happening,
you could say in the next ninety days or perhaps
from now to the end of the year. I mean,
what's your what's your sense of where the tariff negotiations
are and where they're going.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
No, I'm glad you are, because look as before I
get to sort of thinking about tariff negotiations, let me
just emphasize something, which is that you're bringing up that
all of these depthsit reduction things are tied together, but
they get left out of the conversation by a lot
of analysts and a lot of and a lot of
the media because they don't enter into the scoring process
by the Congressional Budget Office. When the Congressional Budget Office

(09:01):
looks at how much the one big beautiful bill is
going to cost, they do so with a very narrow
lens and they ignore a number of things that are
going to bring the deafest down materially, and tariffs are
part of that. But let me just walking through the
rest of it. So it's going to create huge amounts
of economic growth through what I was talking about before. Right,
that economic growth delivers more revenues because as people have
more income and companies have more income, they pay more
income tax and more corporate tax. That's going to boost

(09:23):
revenues by about a percentage point of GDP if we
get growth to three percent, So that'll take a point
off the deficit.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Right. Number two is tariffs that you just brought up.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Tariffs are quite likely going to bring in hundreds of
billions of dollars of revenue every year if we keep
teriff rates where they are now.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
That shaves another point off the deficit. Another one is
interest expense.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Because our policies push out the supply side of the
economy because they get workers to be willing to work
more because they keep more of their wages. Because firms
invest in more capital stock, they invest in more factories,
more equipment. That pushes at the supply side of the economy, which,
by the way, our deregulation efforts help also because deregulation
allows firms to just do what they want to do
to sell into the market without begging permission from Washington.

(10:06):
Firms should just be able to provide to meet consumer demand,
and that helps co price pressures. So as we bring
price pressures down, as we continue slaying the lingering Biden
inflation price pressures, interest rates will come down to And
if interest rates on federal debt come down to where
they were right before COVID struck, it'll shave another point
more than quite more than a point actually off of

(10:27):
the deficit. And then there's custom waste front, that waste
front abuse that you mentioned before. That's at least another
half a point off the deficit, maybe more so. Between
all of these things, I just gave you between three
and four percentage points of GDP worth of reduction off
the deficit.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
And that's huge.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
And guess what, none of this falls into the CBO
score because of the rules that Congress gave, the rules
that Congress adopted when they gave CBO its mission. But
there what are going to bring the deficit down materially
down over the next few years and help control the
federal deficit in the federal debt. But they don't enter
into the conversation because of the very peculiar rules of
how the scoring process from the Congressional Budget Office works.

(11:03):
But the administration's determined to bring the deficit down, and
we're going to succeed.

Speaker 4 (11:07):
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Speaker 3 (11:20):
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Speaker 4 (11:23):
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(11:44):
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(12:07):
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(12:34):
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Speaker 3 (12:46):
Powell in the Fed.

Speaker 4 (12:47):
But what is the philosophical rationale as you can see
it for rates not coming down?

Speaker 3 (12:53):
And President Trump's.

Speaker 4 (12:54):
Been very vocal that he's frustrated given the low rate,
and I know the most recent data on inflation was
really encouraging.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
Why haven't rates gone down?

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Like?

Speaker 4 (13:04):
What are we waiting? I mean, I think just normal
people want to ask what are they waiting for? I
know this is out of the White House's hands, So
are they just are they just being too late on this?

Speaker 1 (13:14):
Well?

Speaker 2 (13:15):
I mean, you know, over time they'll come down to reality,
and the reality is that we are we are killing
inflation in this administration. Inflation came in below expectations in
the last three reports. Core inflation on an annual basis
is as low as it's been since March of twenty
twenty one. So we've taken out all of the Biden

(13:35):
inflation that occurred in twenty twenty later in twenty twenty
one and twenty twenty two, and our policies will continue
pushing inflation doubt by allowing the economy to produce more
of getting government out of the way, getting the tax
man out of the way, letting workers work, letting firms invest,
letting firms produce by getting regulations out of the way.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Cutting red tape.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Allows firms to deliver into consumer demand and keeps pressure,
keeps price pressures low, and that will kill inflation, and
that will bring interest rates down over time.

Speaker 4 (14:04):
Steve Myron, Chairman Council of Economic Advisors at the White House,
Thanks for being the time for us today, sir, great
to talk to you, and please keep this economy roaring
all right.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
A lot of people are happy to see it.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
Thanks for having me. It's been a real pleasure.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
Israel experienced even more attacks last week latest in this
onslaught five of them, in fact, from the Houthi rebels.
Just when you think the Houthi Rebels may be limited
from any further missile strikes after both the US and
the IDEA forces eliminated their ability to launch rockets, Israel
fears there are more that could be coming. There's little
that could provide peace in Israel right now for young

(14:40):
and old alike, and a country that embraces their youth
as well as respecting their elders, especially those that survived
the Holocaust and are still with us. Eighty years ago
this month, the horror of the Holocaust, the Final Solution
as it was called, came to an end. Half of
all living Holocaust survivors reside in Israel today, further testimony
to just how special Israel is. The pain of the
pass is only intensified by these kinds of missile attacks.

(15:02):
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