Pence Rejects One-Time Coronavirus Wealth Tax — ‘The Way to Jump-Start This Economy Is Exactly the Opposite’

Wednesday during an interview with nationally syndicated radio host Hugh Hewitt, Vice President Mike Pence dismissed the suggestion of a one-time wealth tax to finance the federal government’s response to coronavirus.

Pence argued for the opposite and predicted 2021 would be a strong year for the American economy.

“President Trump has got our economic team working on a range of proposals, particularly as we look at what’s commonly referred to as a Phase 4 legislative package,” he said. “And we actually think the way to jump-start this economy is exactly the opposite, Hugh. We think now’s the time for us to look at eliminating the payroll tax, to look at other possible tax reforms. I mean, look, the President often says this, and it’s, you can’t say it too often, is that this is what you said. It’s a hundred-year event. No one saw this coming. The impact on our economy, the impact on businesses large and small, and hard-working American families is, was, is utterly unprecedented in our lifetimes. And so we need to think boldly about how once we’ve largely put the Coronavirus in the past, which may well be in the months ahead that we find ways to encourage investment and encourage growth and encourage the American people to safely and responsibly return to work and return to all of the activities that we all enjoy as parts of communities.”

“I really do believe that it’ll be, it’ll be one of the primary focus of this President going forward is how do we, not only how do we safely and responsibly open up America again, but what policies are we going to be able to enact that will create the kind of investment that’ll create jobs and growth in this economy,” Pence continued. “You know, one of the things the President’s often talked about is allowing for the expensing, once again, of business costs for dining out. It’s one of the ways that you can encourage businesses to have their employees start going back to restaurants and doing business at restaurants as once was the case before that tax deduction was eliminated. But rather than raising taxes, I promise you, President Trump, President Trump’s going to use the full strength of the American economy, because this is a president who knows that growth will solve all of our problems. We get the American economy growing again, starting to grow in the third quarter, rolling in the fourth quarter. And as the President said, we think 2021 could be one of the most prosperous years for economic growth in American history.”

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