Larry Kudlow: ‘People would rather have a job than a tax hike’

Larry Kudlow explained how waging a tax war against businesses and investors leads to economic war against blue-collar workers on 'Kudlow.'

LARRY KUDLOW: You’re really waging economic war against blue-collar, middle-class working folks who comprise the vast majority of the nearly 160 million-strong labor force. Now, of course, that’s supply-side economics. That’s the Laffer curve. I really think it’s plain old simple horse sense. People who work in business, in contrast to Ivy League faculty members, understand this full well. So, let’s take a look at some of these results. 

The first chart, raising corporate taxes, okay? The mention of job losses reduces support for corporate tax hikes overall from 60% all the way down to 44%. That is a huge drop—16-point drop. Even Democrats who love their class warfare—their support drops 15 points from 75% to 60%. Now it’s interesting. Now, look it, this is not just an arbitrary threat of a job loss. I would argue periods of heavy tax hikes, like the 1930s or 1970s, produce huge job losses. Whereas periods of big tax cuts, like the 1920s or the JFK ’60s or the Reagan ’80s and more recently, the Trump pre-pandemic tax cuts produced huge job gains. 

Now, I get it. Not everyone agrees with the supply-side view.  OK fine. I respect that. But right now we’re facing a 3 or 4 trillion-dollar Biden tax hike and some very respectable sources are predicting massive job losses.  Now, you may not agree with the tax foundation or the Wharton Penn Model or the NAM Rice Institute Model but they’re all very respectable and they’re all predicting similarly large economic and job losses as a result of across-the-board tax hikes, okay? These are very strong institutions. So if you’re going to ask voters what they think about tax hikes, you just need to inform them that they could result in big job losses.