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Larry Kudlow: Now’s the Time: Save America. Balance the Budget.



The balanced budget, if done properly, would produce rapid economic growth and low inflation. That's right – strong growth, low inflation. It may seem far-fetched, but it occurs to me that now would be a good time to talk about a return to a balanced budget in Washington, D.C. That's right. A balanced budget.

Amid uncontrolled federal spending, and deficit finance and borrowing, and money printing – and, let's not forget, we have a president who believes more spending would actually curb inflation – I'm going to encourage everyone to move toward a new idea: Save America. Balance the budget.

Now, this is not entirely new. I've been talking about it with Newt Gingrich for many months this year. The former House speaker has a whole segment in his American Majority Project on the balanced budget.

We're also talking about it at the America First Policy Institute with Russ Vought and Brooke Rollins. We're going to actually map one out.

In the last balanced budget, in the late 1990s during Mr. Gingrich's speakership, the policy thrust of those balanced budgets came from the Contract with America.

Now, here's a key thought, in economic terms: The balanced budget, if done properly, would produce rapid economic growth and low inflation. That's right – strong growth, low inflation.

Today, with massive spending and huge deficits, we have weak growth and high inflation. It's time for a change. Newt Gingrich believes, and I agree, that Republicans, Democrats, and independents would welcome a balanced budget initiative.

After the collapse of President Biden's radical, progressive experiment, which Mr. Gingrich correctly calls "big government socialism," it is time for a return to common-sense ideas that would revolve around a return to free market capitalism.

Proposing a balanced budget today would emphasize not only strict limits on federal spending, but would also include making the Trump tax cuts permanent, a return to deregulation, and support for a sound, reliable King Dollar. Also, the principle of workfare – where taxpayer benefits for various forms of welfare, food stamps, healthcare, and all the too numerous to count, expensive subsidies and programs littered throughout the $4 trillion federal budget would be predicated on work and education requirements.

This was Senator Manchin's contribution in our so-far successful quest to save America and kill the bill.

Low marginal tax rates could generate supply-side growth, and return us back to the post-World War II period, when U.S. real growth averaged roughly 3.5 percent for about 50 years. We did it once, and we can do it again. Let's go back to free market incentives to spur more work, productivity, and family incomes, plus low rates, minimal regulation, and minimal federal spending.

Mr. Biden's woke economics and woke culture are being rejected by the American public. His idea of income redistribution, his dislike for successful men and women in business, his inflationism, his assault on parents and families, his painful and expensive green new deal initiatives, his disregard for border sovereignty – all of this adds up to the progressive agenda he has stuck with in the face of growing unpopularity.

Not only has he damaged the culture and assaulted the economy, but frankly he's also ripped apart the Democratic Party. This is where a balanced budget policy could become an organizing principle for all manner of important reforms throughout the economy and the culture.

Remember, the Biden budgets have financed big-time inflation, but they have also financed big-time left-wing woke social policies, including critical race theory, wild gender and sexual teachings in early schooling, new social justice agencies throughout the entire government, radical climate regulations that are killing us at the pump but also literally preventing power to fuel the economy.

Massive new regulatory burdens are an assault against business generally, and of course fossil companies specifically. And it has all backfired, as these radical progressive policies always have wherever they've been tried throughout history.

In a rather dull and gloomy period, during this tiny sliver of Biden history, I choose to remain steadfastly optimistic about the future of America. With Uncle Joe's approval polls running consistently in the 30s, I see his new progressive era drawn to a close before long.

Yes, the cavalry is coming. That's the gospel of good news. And somewhere in this good news, I think a balanced budget aimed at high growth, low inflation, and new family prosperity is an important organizing principle.

Save America. Balance the budget.

From Mr. Kudlow's broadcast on Fox Business News.

Mr. Kudlow is a Fox News Media contributor. His show "Kudlow" airs at 4 pm ET weekdays. He is also syndicated radio host of "The Larry Kudlow Show" that broadcasts every Saturday from 10 am to 1 pm ET.


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Posted: May 16, 2022 Monday 06:41 PM