07-15-24 Interview - Paul Winfree CEO of the Ecomonic Policy Innovation Center

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Now joining me now is a completelydifferent kind of guest, Paul Winfrey.
He is the president and CEO ofthe Economic Policy Innovation Center. I promise
I can read Paul. He wasthe Deputy Assistant to President Trump for Domestic
Policy, the Deputy Director of theDomestic Policy Council, and Director of Budget

(00:21):
Policy, all at the White House, and he is the man we have
to thank, at least in part, for the creation and construction of the
twenty seventeen Trump tax cuts. PaulWinfrey, Welcome to the show. Thanks
for having me. Appreciate it.No relation to Oprah, No, I'm
just kidding. I wis Oprah.That'd be incredible, Oprah sister, let
me help you with your finances.So you had the we were kind of

(00:44):
chatting about this before you came on. You had the opportunity to work in
the White House and just as aas a human being, as a guy.
What is that like, because Ithink that that has to be overwhelming.
Oh, it's an incredible experience.I mean you just walk into the
building and have this sense of servicefor the American people overwhelm you. And

(01:06):
it's a great honor of my lifeand I highlight of my professional career.
So you were part of the teamat that said, look, we got
to cut taxes. How does thatprocess work? What are you guys analyzing
before you come up with a taxcut package? Tell me about that entire
process. Sure, So, Imean the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,
which was enacted at the very endof Trump's first year, was really a

(01:27):
program that Congress had worked on forthe better part of a decade quite frankly,
you know, and had gotten allof the outside groups engaged. And
so by the time we got tothe summer of twenty seventeen and there was
this mandate to reform the tax codeand reduce the tax burden on the American
people, it was it was moreor less a done deal. We just

(01:51):
needed to figure out what the specificsultimately looked like and then you know,
lining up the votes to ultimately getthe bill through Congress. When you're citing
those levels, when you're talking aboutwe're going to roll this rate back five
percent, four percent, whatever,We're going to take the capital gains tax
back down, how do you evencome up with those numbers? And when
you're coming up with those numbers,are you alternately thinking of how much revenue

(02:14):
were immediately kind of cutting versus whatkind of economic growth you're looking at.
Because of this, I mean,that seems like a very complicated equation.
I mean, economic growth was centralto putting the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
together right at the same time,before the bill actually started moving, the
members needed to come together with PresidentTrump and figure out what deficit impact they

(02:36):
would be willing to accept, right, and they were willing to swallow a
one point five trillion dollar revenue lossand in order to get in order to
get tax reform done. Now,most of that revenue loss is actually on
the individual side, so that's anindividual tax cut. The business components and
the corporate components and the international components. Almost all of those changes that they
paid for themselves because real reform wasinvolved. So other words, even though

(03:00):
they were reducing the corporate tax rate, they were also you know, getting
rid of special tax break provisions forthese different companies and things like that that
really make the tax code inefficient.Well, and that's part of my issue
with the tax code is it isso dense and so hard to understand.
A normal layperson doesn't have a cluewhat's in the tax code. What were
you would you ever be in favorof really simplifying the tax code and doing

(03:23):
something a fair tax or a flattax or one of the other streamline sort
of consumption taxes that are out there. Yeah. So one of Trump's ideas
that he really pushed Congress on thatwe were that they weren't able to deliver
on, was getting the tax codeso simplified that the vast majority of people
could file with a postcard side price, you know, tax return. And

(03:45):
unfortunately, like I said, weweren't able to get there. But I
mean, like, you know,I think that that is what real tax
reform ultimately looks like. And andand you're going into next year with the
expiration of some of the tax componentson the individual side and small business side,
they're going to have Congress is goingto have another opportunity, Hopefully President
Trump's going to have another opportunity,another bite at the apple. Uh to

(04:09):
uh to to revisit the not mistakesthat were made in twenty seventeen, but
to build on twenty seventeen uh andand implement something that looks even more fundamentally
like tax reform. It's is itfrustrating for you to see people demagogue the
tax cuts as the tax cuts forthe rich. Oh, I mean,
we look, look, people acrossthe income spectrum got a reduction in their

(04:30):
in their in their h and thetaxes that they paid. And you know,
and even if you look at youknow, each sort of income band
and who's you know, paying whatand all this, it's the rich that
are still paying more than anybody else, right, And it's the middle class
and the lower income people who areactually going to be penalized the most next

(04:50):
year if the twenty seventeen tax cutsare allowed to expire. Let me ask
you this before we have to go, and that is about deficits. Because
we're over over a trillion dollars everyyear running deficits. And it seems to
me that modern monetary policy has takenover DC, even though it's a fool's
errand in my nerdy estimation, arewe going to see any seriousness about the

(05:13):
deficit? Are we going to seeany efforts to rein in spending under a
new Trump administration? I think wewill have to see folks getting serious about
the deficit, right, I mean, the government has grown dramatically over the
last four years, and you know, I mean, it's it's it's just
a it's just a matter of math, right, and so yes, I
do think that the next kind,and we're seeing it from members of Congressman,

(05:34):
they're already starting to work on plansto go to put into what they
call budget reconciliation that would reduce thedeficit and a bill that they hope hopefully
will be sent to President Trump's deskearly early next year. So I think,
you know, it's it's unavoidable.Uh. You know, interest rates
are higher than than than they've beenin you know, the generation, and
so it's it's just a matter oftime, all right. Paul Winfrey,

(05:57):
thank you so much for your timetoday, And hopefully you can have the
presidency here about that spending issue,and then we'll be best friends, you
and I we'll get on with thatspending under control. That'd be fantastic,
all right. That's Paul Winfrey.