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Conservative economists pour cold water on Harris’ new small-business tax proposal

Conservative economists pour cold water on Harris’ new small-business tax proposal

Conservative economists are pouring cold water on Vice President Kamala Harris‘ new proposal aimed at reducing startup costs for new small businesses as part of her “Opportunity Economy” economic platform. Harris unveiled new small-business tax proposals last week aimed at reducing the cost burden related to starting a new business. Among the proposals was a substantial increase in the standard tax deduction for small-business startup costs, from $5,000 to $50,000. “It’s essentially a tax cut for starting a small business,” the vice president said during a stump speech announcing the new proposal. “We’re going to help more small businesses and innovators get off the ground.” Meanwhile, Harris has simultaneously expressed support for raising marginal tax rates for both corporations and individuals, which conservative economists argued would work to diminish the benefit received by the tenfold increase in the startup deduction.  “She wants to increase taxes on all kinds of income, on all classifications of income, so no matter how the small business is ultimately structured, they will still be paying more,” conservative economist E.J. Antoni told Fox News Digital. “Now, is that going to be diminished by this increase in the tax deduction? Absolutely. But, then, why are you doing both? That doesn’t make any sense.” NEW YORK REPUBLICAN WRANGLES WITH CNN HOST HITTING TRUMP’S ECONOMIC POLICIES Under the Trump administration, standard deductions were increased while marginal tax rates were lowered, Antoni pointed out. Additionally, under former President Trump’s tax cut measures, small business owners were allowed to claim a deduction for their “qualified business income.” It will ultimately be up to Congress to decide whether to keep any of Trump’s expiring tax cuts. Trump spoke at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday, during which he laid out plans like lowering the corporate tax rate from its current 21% to 15%. Trump’s first-term tax cuts reduced it previously from 35%. “Harris wants to do the opposite [of Trump],” Antoni said. “She wants to increase the deduction, but then increase the marginal tax rates.” PENNSYLVANIANS SOUND OFF ON WHERE THEY BELIEVE HARRIS STANDS ON KEY ISSUES Robert Wolfe, a Harris supporter and former chairman of UBS Americas, a global wealth management firm, pointed out that the tax rate increase for individuals will only impact those making more than $400,000. “We want small businesses being built,” Wolfe said. “And we know that the ramp-up phase takes time, and so the idea that we wouldn’t applaud small businesses and entrepreneurs getting tax credits doesn’t make sense to me.” Richard Stern, director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation, said that under current tax laws, new business owners can already deduct most early-stage expenses, like payroll and equipment costs. Startup expenses, meanwhile, are defined under the tax code as those costs incurred prior to a business being registered with the federal government, which, according to Stern, are typically pretty minimal.  “Harris’ new tax deduction for small businesses isn’t a subsidy for starting a business per se,” he said. “It’s only useful if you actually spend $50K on pre-business expenses. So, this is disproportionately a subsidy for larger starting businesses.”  Stern also agreed with Antoni’s take that Harris is essentially giving to small businesses with one hand, while taking from them with the other.  Antoni, meanwhile, suggested that whoever is formulating economic policy for the Harris campaign is “building the train as it goes down the tracks.” “It really seems like there were no policy proposals thought out ahead of time, and they are just throwing these things together,” he said. CRITICS BLAST HARRIS’ GRASP OF INFLATION, ATTACK ON BUSINESS AHEAD OF POLICY SPEECH: ‘LUNATIC BEHAVIOR’ While right-wing economic experts argue Harris’ latest tax proposal would be diminished by her plans to raise taxes in other areas and do little to help inexperienced business owners start their first company, Roger Hochschild, a Harris supporter and former CEO at Discover Financial Services, says the move will be “critical to driving further economic growth.” “I think she is very clear in her support of small businesses and acknowledging that they are the backbone of the economy,” Hochschild said.  Rhett Buttle, a former 2020 Biden campaign adviser, echoed that sentiment. He said the increased tax deduction proves Harris’ “deep commitment” to entrepreneurs, according to NBC News.  “There are broad strokes here to people from all walks of life,” he said. “Small business and entrepreneurship tends to be a great unifier in a world where people have starkly different political divisions,” Buttle said. In addition to Harris’ new tax proposals for small businesses, she also laid out her plan this week for taxing capital gains. She wants to increase it to 33%, whereas Biden reportedly wants the current rate, which is at 23.8%, to be nearly doubled, according to The Wall Street Journal. LIBERAL WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL BOARD HAS SCATHING TAKE ON HARRIS’ ECONOMIC PLAN: ‘POPULIST GIMMICKS’ Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment on the criticisms about her small-business tax proposal, but was only directed to a social media post of a small business owner speaking at a Harris campaign rally. “Do you think that your small business is better off now, than it was under the Trump administration?” NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez asked the entrepreneur. “Oh, without a doubt,” the business owner, Brad Smith, responded. “And I think the reason is everything to do with optimism — if you’re a doom-and-gloom candidate, or president, you are not going to start a business.”

Gov. Abbott dismisses Biden-Harris victory lap narrative as Texas border crossings plunge

Gov. Abbott dismisses Biden-Harris victory lap narrative as Texas border crossings plunge

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is touting a sharp drop in border crossings in 2024, arguing that it is due to the efforts of his state rather than the policies of the Biden administration, which he says have hurt, not helped, the effort to secure the border as the administration has sought to “tear down” what Texas has done. “Texas has the largest border of any state in the United States of America. And, in the early years of the Biden administration, it was Texas that was being overrun by the illegal immigration policies that were promoted and implemented by [President] Biden and by [Vice President Kamala] Harris,” he said in an interview with Fox News Digital. Abbott pursued an aggressive strategy under Operation Lone Star, in which he surged troops and resources to the border, building its own border wall after the Biden administration stopped construction, setting up buoys in the Rio Grande and installing razor wire fence. It has led to a number of legal battles in court between the state and the Biden administration. The White House accused Abbott of putting migrants and Border Patrol at risk and impeding federal law enforcement. BORDER OFFICIALS REVEAL WHICH FOREIGN GANG THEY ARE MAKING KEY ‘PRIORITY’ AMID CRIMES IN MULTIPLE STATES After three years of a historic crisis at the southern border, with records of encounters being repeatedly smashed since Biden entered the White House, numbers dropped dramatically over the summer. The White House tied the sharp drop in encounters to an executive order Biden signed in June which restricted asylum entries into the U.S. — with encounters in July the lowest since September 2020. The administration has argued that it needs more funding and reforms from Congress, but that Republicans have voted against them for political purposes. Specifically, officials have cited a bipartisan bill that would have increased funding while putting some limits on entries. It has failed to make it out of the Senate. “For months, the Biden-Harris Administration worked with a bipartisan group of Senators to craft a historic bipartisan border security agreement that would have added thousands of frontline personnel to the border — but Congressional Republicans voted against that agreement twice — proving that they are more interested in cynically playing politics than securing the border,” the White House said last month. “The Biden-Harris Administration has taken effective action, and Republicans continue to do nothing.” HOW EAGLE PASS BECAME THE CENTERPIECE OF ABBOTT’S EFFORTS TO SECURE THE BORDER But Abbott has said that the drop in Texas has had nothing to do with those policies. “In Texas, illegal immigration has gone down about 85%, while it is higher than that in Arizona, New Mexico and California,” he said. “So it shows that what Texas is doing is working despite the fact that Biden and Harris have challenged Texas every step of the way to try to tear down what we built.” Abbott’s comments come amid an ongoing political battle over who is responsible for the border crisis and which presidential candidate is better positioned to fix it. Harris has recently claimed that she is the better candidate to solve the issues at the border, zeroing in on the bipartisan Senate bill and blaming former President Trump for its failure. CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMMIGRATION COVERAGE “As president, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that he killed, and I will sign it into law. I know… we can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system. We can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border,” she said at the Democratic National Convention. Abbott said that Harris believes in “open border policies” and said he would be supporting Trump in the November election. “Americans need to learn the reality, both of how the policy changed under Biden-Harris and what Kamala Harris would do to pretty much put America on a pathway of destruction,” he said.

Texas Gov. Abbott reveals which 3 issues Trump should focus on during debate: ‘Let Harris talk’

Texas Gov. Abbott reveals which 3 issues Trump should focus on during debate: ‘Let Harris talk’

LAS VEGAS — Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been in more than a few debates during his decades-long political career. Abbott won three terms as state attorney general before winning election and two re-elections as Texas governor. So his advice to former President Trump ahead of Tuesday’s first and potentially only debate between the GOP presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris — the Democratic Party’s nominee — is “Let Harris talk.” “The more she talks without talking into a teleprompter, the more she shows America that she’s really not up to the task,” Abbott emphasized in an interview with Fox News Digital along the sidelines of the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership meeting in Las Vegas. CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING ON THE HARRIS-TRUMP DEBATE Abbott asserted that “if he [Trump] lets her talk and if he focuses on three issues — one is the border, another is the inflation caused by Harris and [President] Biden, and the other is the rapid crime that we see in some cities, caused by people like Harris and [her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim] Walz — Americans are going to understand the last thing they want to do is to have Kamala Harris running our country, because it would be run into the ground.” 2024 CASH DASH: HARRIS NEARLY TRIPLES TRUMP IN FUNDRAISING RACE The governor endorsed Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination last November — before the start early this year of voting in the Republican primaries — when the two leaders teamed up for an event along the U.S.-Mexico border. Earlier this week, Abbott was on the campaign trail in battleground Arizona on behalf of Trump. And he says he will continue to make the case for the former president. “I will remain on the campaign trail for President Trump because no one knows more about what’s going on on the border than I do,” said the border state governor. Border security has also long been a top issue for Abbott, who has sparred repeatedly with the Biden administration. And border security is all but certain to remain a top issue for Abbott, who will start gearing up next year for a 2026 run for a fourth-straight four-year term steering Texas. TRUMP AND HARRIS ON COLLISION COURSE AS 2024 CAMPAIGN ENTERS FINAL STRETCH Abbott charged that “Americans need to learn the reality, both of how the policy changed under Biden and Harris and what Kamala Harris would do to pretty much put America on a pathway of destruction.” If the former president wins back his old job, Abbott predicts a second Trump term would be productive. “During his first term, we worked well, especially on border security-based issues. But it’s going to be better this time in part because he will come to office knowing far more than he did when he entered office last time, knowing which levers to pull, what can be done, and the strategies and how to quickly take care of it,” the governor said. “I’ve talked to him in recent times about what his plans are. He’s going to be far more aggressive this time than he was last time because he has to find a way to course correct from all the damage caused to the United States by Harris and Biden,” Abbott argued. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.