This week on The Wheelhouse... Tax reform - will the 2017 Trump tax cuts be extended?

And tax day right around the corner.

For Connecticut public I'm Frankie Graziano.

This is the Wheelhouse.

It's the show that connects politics to the people.

We got your weekly dose of politics in Connecticut and beyond right here.

President Donald Trump's 2017 tax cuts, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, are set to expire at the end of this year.

But top Republicans want to extend the program.

Will they succeed?

And who really benefits from the tax cuts?

Well get into that this hour.

And, later, well hear how state lawmakers hope to increase access to the ballot in Connecticut.

But firstlets talk turkey...lets talk taxes.

Joining me now, Nancy Qian, Professor of Managerial Economics & Decision Sciences at Northwestern University.

Good morning Nancy.

Good morning Frankie.

So great to hear from you this morning.

Thank you for joining us.

Also with us, Dan Haar - Senior editor and columnist for Hearst Connecticut Mirror.

Good morning.

Keep Connecticut.

Media person to know can you.

Try to do Connecticut Mirror and Media?

They are our friends.

But that's not.

Where I work.

Yeah, it's like the first time that they're not on the show in a while.

So there.

You go.

Great to be here.

Thank you so much Dan I appreciate it.

Talking tax cuts this hour.

You can to join the conversation.

(888) 720-9677, (888) 720-9677.

Nancy, let's rewind to 2017.

The Trump tax cuts, the tax cuts and jobs Act.

What did it exactly do.

And can we tell here five, six years on seven years.

Who benefited most from these cuts?

Did they get one of the biggest similarities between what happened in 2017 and now of course, are tariffs.

You know all the talk of increasing tariffs.

And so the earlier the earlier Trump administration mostly focus on China.

And the idea was that if we increase tariffs on the things that were coming from China, then that would benefit American consumers and American manufacturers.

You know, tariffs are just a tax.

And make means that that $10 pair of sneakers or dollar that's coming from China.

The Chinese need to pay a dollar.

If it's a 10% tax, they have to pay a dollar to sell it to Americans.

And the hope was that by making that deal, $11, it would make American manufacturers more competitive.

But unfortunately, what we saw was that that dollar of tariffs or taxes was mostly paid Paid for by American importers.

So the tariff issue happens.

How did this look like?

For people across the board for for regular Americans.

So those tariffs didn't last very long.

So if we looked at them, you know, after a year, it didn't affect America as much.

And the reason was because American importers, understanding that American consumers really don't like price increases.

They absorbed, most of the cost of those tariffs.

But had they lasted longer, they wouldn't have been able to do that.

Because, you know, these importers have a bottom line.

And at some point to meet that bottom line, they're going to have to pass that costs on to somebody else.

Economists call it a pass through.

So then the big question is the big question I think today is if we impose all these tariffs and if there are long lasting, will those costs get passed on to American consumers or on to the foreign producers, which is the hope of the administration?

I just saw a post the other day on social media about a farmer talking about skyrocketing costs, and it's not necessarily meaning that the price, that he pays for, for milk or anything like that or, or anything goes down.

Dan.

So, it's that's obviously a concern, I would imagine.

Anything you want to add based on listening to what you just heard from Nancy?

No, there's no debate here.

This is stuff we learned in Smoot-Hawley.

And when was it?

In the 30s.

This is a ridiculous debate.

Every Republican in Congress knows that this doesn't work, to this degree.

There is a big difference.

As our friend Jeff Sonnenfeld at Yale has pointed out in a recent, series of articles, really, but one significant one this week, there's a big difference between using tariffs as a tactical tool for targeted industries, specifically steel and aluminum and aluminum and and launching this all out international trade war, which will effectively disassemble the global supply chain.

So the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expires at the end of this year.

There's a great effort underway to get it extended.

Do you anticipate that's going to happen?

Well, it's going to happen.

The question is to what degree will they, for example, will they, extend the the the the, I'm sorry, the estate tax.

That's a going up from I think 7 million to 14 million exemption.

It could go possibly even further.

There are details of it that could change like that.

Some people want no more increase in the, in the, exemptions for people, that sort of thing.

When we talk about tariffs, we talked about somebody incurring a price increase.

This will come with a hefty price tag because I would imagine what's going to cover that.

Is it going to be maybe cutting social services, Medicaid, Social Security?

What do you think?

Well, the Congressional Budget Office, which is obviously nonpartisan and perhaps even Republican leaning right now, would, would say has said that there have to be cuts in Medicaid for this to work.

Medicaid is, obviously I think it's the biggest program we have, and at least that's the one that would be affected.

$880 billion.

Is that is that possible?

Over ten years?

It seems impossible.

The cuts could be about 10% of Medicaid, according to my reading of, what's coming from CBO.

They need about $880 billion in cuts total.

It sounds like Connecticut, $10 billion in Medicaid.

Last year, as I understand it, in talking to Sean Scanlon and Keith Phaneuf last week and about six, to 7 billion of that comes from the federal government.

So the liberal think tank, Nancy, called the center for American Progress, says extending the Trump tax cuts would, quote, increase upward pressure on the debt to GDP ratio by more than 50%.

I have to dumb that down for myself.

What will the cuts mean for the economy in the long run?

So, you know, really depends on where the cuts are coming from.

I mean, first of all, I think we want to take all of the numbers that are out there with a grain of salt.

These are our estimates based on how businesses and consumers respond, how importers, exporters respond.

But whatever it is, is going to be a big number and is going to result is going to result in cuts.

So how is it going to affect the American economy in the long run?

Well, I mean, the cuts themselves are really depends on what they're cutting.

You know, if they start slashing into public education or public health services.

You know, these are things that are going to have long run ramifications on the growth and the development of American children.

American students and the future of the American economy, even though they might not be felt immediately.

Right.

And then just the tariffs themselves and the taxes, you know, the tariffs themselves, which is what we started off with.

Those in themselves can have a really big, long an impact on the American economy.

So what the administration is hoping for is that by imposing these tariffs, American manufacturers will be producing more stuff, be able to sell more stuff to be more competitive because these tariffs, again, they're just taxes will increase the price of the, the price that Americans have to pay for whatever they're buying right now, whether it be a doll or a car.

Right.

But what happens when prices go up?

People buy less of those things, and they bet they're going to buy fewer Hondas, they're going to buy fewer Ford's.

And that has an impact on the American economy.

Nancy, we're so blessed to have you on here.

To break this down, I appreciate it.

Give us a call 887209677 is the important conversation as we ponder taxes ahead of tax day.

(888)720-9677.

And of course, what filing taxes will look like in 2026.

And expiration of Trump's tax cuts means an increase for Americans filing taxes in 2026, as I understand it.

But is the idea, that we'll be paying more in the long run?

I give credence to that.

But I guess first off, let me say this an increase for Americans filing taxes in 2026.

If the tax cuts don't go through.

Can you hear me, Nancy?

Wondering if I'm losing.

Oh, sorry.

Oh, did I not post that as a question I apologize.

So thank.

You so much for your.

Me.

If the tax cuts don't go through and they expire, excuse me.

If we're not extending the tax cuts, the federal government.

I apologize for that.

Does that mean that people have to pay more to file taxes in 2026, or when they're filing their taxes?

Excuse me.

So I'm going to, I'm going to defer.

I was just I'm going to echo the answer that was given earlier.

The current tax act is a lot of different things.

So it really depends on what's being extended, what's not right.

There's many different components here.

We know that some of it the bulk of it will be extended I think.

Nancy, you would agree that it's likely we're going to see the ratcheting down that happened in 2017 of the basic schedule of income tax cuts across the board are going to continue.

I don't hear any political opposition to that in the Senate.

It's a question of how much.

Isn't that the case?

That's right.

And so about how we're doing it.

So right now there's a lot of talk of cutting taxes or just reduce getting rid of income taxes for everyone, thus earning less than $150,000 per year.

You know, is that going to happen?

Isn't going to happen.

Is that not going to happen?

I think it's an open question.

Yeah.

There's a really important political point to be made here, which is that Democrats are taking a risk by saying that these are tax cuts for billionaires, tax cuts for multi-millionaires, while that is true, and while some 80%, 87% of the 2017 tax cuts did go to top earners, the rest of us do get a tax cut and people see that right.

A typical middle class earner maybe saw, would you say 15 to $1800 in tax relief?

That's not nothing.

And so it's a risk for Democrats to keep saying you're not getting the tax cut.

They are.

That's that's an important, distinction, the short term versus the long run.

Very important point that Nancy brought up there that I kind of want to expound on.

If you cut public health and you cut into public education to fund these, then you may have an issue where people are not as healthy and they're spending more money on health care, and obviously out of pocket.

And, there's a bit of a brain drain that could be an issue.

So that can hurt the economy as well.

So let's talk more about the long term impacts.

Can you help us unpack that a little bit, Nancy, and what this could mean for our economy overall?

I think we want to think about the long run impacts from two sides.

One is the programs that we're going to cut, which is what we've been talking about.

Right.

Like if we're cutting really important programs for the development of the American population with relation to health and education, that would just be terrible for the economy.

That would be terrible for any economy.

Just for the obvious reasons.

We want healthy, educated people to populate the country, to work, to be productive, to be happy, to have babies, so on and so forth.

Right.

That's just I think the logic there is obvious.

Populating the people in the economy.

Yes.

Exactly.

You know, economies, economies versus people, right?

The economy, the American economy is the working age population amongst 330 million people.

We want them healthy, educated, productive, happy.

And, so we don't want to hurt.

We don't want to have programs at all that will undermine that in the long run.

So the other angle we want to start thinking about is the things that the administration say they can do in order to raise revenues to compensate for the revenue losses from the tax cuts.

And so far, the thing that we're hearing the most about, again, are the tariffs.

So the the administration says, you know, if we increased tariffs, we can raise a lot of money to fund whatever it is that we're losing from the tax cuts.

I think Peter Navarro just the other day said, you know, if we have 20% across the board tariffs on everything, on everyone, then we can raise $6.5 trillion or some huge number.

Again, these numbers are always ballpark estimates.

Still, we take it with a grain of salt.

But let's assume that we can raise a lot of money in the short run.

The question is can we keep raising that money in the long run, because the tax cuts will result in revenue losses for many years going forward.

And here I think it's really unclear because again, you know, when you increase the price of imported goods, people are going to start to buy less of it.

So maybe this year we can make a lot of money from tariffs and imports.

Next year people stop buying imports and export or stop exporting to the US, and we won't be able to make those revenues from tariffs anymore.

But, and that's important too, because then you actually have to stick with the tariffs too over the long run.

But it's going to be hard to stick with them if, folks won't buy imports.

This is not difficult.

Economic theory raising.

Money.

No it's not, but I am feverishly.

Taking no I know raising money to to run your operations through tariffs is like selling the wood from the joists that you cut out of your attic to make money on, on, on scrap wood.

It's completely bananas and everyone knows it.

This is not the way to run a government.

This is an attack on government.

This is not sustainable.

This is what I will say is that we have a lot of predictions of recession right now.

Right.

And that comes from a number of different sources.

We don't know exactly what, for example, the tax cuts do to to jobs.

We don't.

The theory is that if you give people more money, it creates more jobs lost in this is the idea that the economy doesn't care where a smart investment comes from, whether it's government spending or private spending.

The issue is how money is spent.

Once it is in the system.

And and there's this crazy idea that it's giving money back to people, and not having it spent in the government is necessarily a better form of investment.

We've seen some really bad government action lately, and the bureaucracy is clogged.

That is true.

But tearing it apart and giving it back doesn't necessarily mean it'll be invested wisely.

So where we're going is talking about inflation.

And there has been a lot of back and forth, nationally and locally as well.

We just heard Senator, Looney, Senator Martin Looney and Senator Bob Duff call out, local Republicans, local Republicans talking about some Tesla protests and whether or not, people are engaging in, very I would say they used extreme verbiage, but how they were, engaging in protests and Duff and Looney are saying, hey, why don't you focus on inflation and costs right now?

What are you doing to bring costs down, locally?

So that's what a lot of people want to talk about.

They want to talk about inflation and the fact that, it is early in an administration, but they're not necessarily seeing costs go down like, federal lawmakers said they would.

Well, costs don't come up and down very quickly.

You know, I will bring costs.

I will bring food prices down on day one is is a promise that is.

A war in three hours.

That's right.

Yeah.

In three hours.

Yeah.

Those are silly promises.

And people should know that.

And unfortunately, we have a we have a devolved electorate.

The inflation in fighting tariffs, clearly, as Nancy said, are inflationary.

A tax cut may or may not be inflationary.

It depends what's done with the money.

And it really there's not a clear answer on whether the tax cuts of 2017 added to inflation.

Many people say yes and some people say no.

Can you help us out with that a little bit, Nancy?

Do did they add to the inflation issue that we have in America too early?

So I think I'm having a hard time hearing you.

I didn't hear the last sentence, I apologize.

Can you hear me now?

One, two, three.

I can hear you now.

So so just really want to, we were talking about inflation and whether or not the tax cuts from 2017 contributed maybe to this issue that we're having right now or to inflation overall.

Can you illuminate that for us?

That's situation.

So I think, you know, the inflation, the extreme inflation that we've experienced and previous years, most of that isn't really attributed to the tax cuts.

Right.

Most of that is attributed to, the Covid zero pandemic, the disruption in the supply chains, which reduce, you know, the amount of labor and quantity of stuff, to make stuff in America.

So while, you know, I wouldn't know, scribe it.

I don't think anyone is ascribing that to earlier tax cuts.

It is interesting to point out that the inflationary pressures are also the exact pressures that we would have from some are some, not all.

Some of the current policies, you know, things that make imported goods more expensive.

So one thing we haven't talked about is how American manufacturers, I mean, it's not black and white.

It's not that American manufacturers only use American inputs.

And, you know, Canadian manufacturers only use Canadian inputs, American manufacturers use Canadian inputs.

So I live in Illinois.

Apparently we import more from Canada than almost any other state I'm trying to renovate.

My home.

Good luck.

But, if so, thank you.

We're trying to build some bookshelves because my kids are getting older, and I've been told that we expect that, the wood just is going to cost 40% more by the end of the year than it does now.

So we're kind of like scrambling to get those bookshelves made.

And the reason is because the timber comes from Canada, right.

So that's an inflationary pressure.

You know, it does.

It sounds it reminds me of the pandemic, except it's not the pandemic.

That's right.

And and it's very important distinction.

I love that you brought that up, because I just saw a recent NBC news report where they were talking to this, manufacturer who makes beer bottles.

He makes the beer, obviously, in his factory, but the caps, some of the aluminum comes from Canada.

So that is a good point, that you're saying that there are multiple cogs in the supply chain here.

Nancy, maybe I might suggest you cut the wood out of the joists in your roof.

Which is about as logical as, this trade war is.

Dan Haar coming with me the next time that I buy a house to look at the Joyce.

But, nonetheless, good luck on that.

At Home improvement.

I'm with you.

I've been there, twice already.

President Donald Trump claiming that he wants to encourage more U.S based manufacturing.

I think he broke this down for us a little bit.

Can the United States manufacture everything we're getting from other countries?

So you said that it's not necessarily something that's been happening, but is it feasible over the long term that that can actually happen where everything's American made?

The question is not can we?

The question is how much will we have to pay for that?

And is this something that we want to pay?

Does it make sense to pay for that?

You know, the question like, can we maybe because America, you know, is blessed with being by these huge geographically, it has a huge amount of natural resources, human talent, a strong historical manufacturing based agricultural land, you know, so on and so forth.

So it's possible that we this is one of the few economies in the world that can actually produce everything that Americans need.

Maybe, the question is how much will we have to pay for that?

Like, why are we you know, we have to ask ourselves, why are we trading at all?

Why do we import at all?

You know, the reason we're importing stuff from other countries is they can produce it at much cheaper prices than us.

I was growing up in the US in the 80s.

I don't know, like how old you guys are, how old the audience is.

But I just remember how.

I remember how expensive toys are.

Yes.

I remember, you know, second grade, the summer my mom was like, you know, if you are really, really good at the end of the summer, we're going to buy you a pair of roller skis from Walmart.

It was there were $35.

This was 1986 rural Alabama, right, $35 today.

You know, I don't know, 30 years later, those 40 years later, okay, I'm feeling really old now.

Those same roller skates are like $20, $15.

And why is that?

Despite inflation, despite everything they actually call it, the sticker price is less.

It's because someone, somewhere in the world, China, Vietnam, Mexico is able to produce it at a much lower cost, which means that, you know, we can buy more roller skates.

People who can't afford roller skates before can afford roller skates.

That's why we have trade.

And so when we increased, when we increased tariffs, we're increasing the tax on those roller skates.

We can keep increasing it and increasing it until we get to a price point that American producers can manufacture here at.

They can produce the same pair of roller skates.

But I don't know how much that will be $35, $40.

And you will see when it happens.

And then the question for American consumers and voters is, you know, well, we do we like having these manufacturing jobs in America producing roller skates, or do we like to pay $30 less for each pair of roller skates?

The collateral damage that comes from that price seeking is enormous.

We shouldn't be making roller skates.

It's as simple as that, and we're never going to get to that price point where we can compete with lower cost places.

That's the problem.

Something tells me that when folks are rolling down a hole in the Wall beach in Niantic this summer, they won't be putting on their roller skates the same way ever again.

Thanks to that fabulous alliteration from Nancy Qian.

I appreciate that you're listening to Nancy Qian.

Managerial economics and decision Sciences at Northwestern University, and Dan Haar, senior editor and columnist for Hearst Connecticut Media.

After the break, what President Donald Trump's tax cuts mean for the US economy and Connecticut.

You can ask our experts a question.

Give us a call (888) 720-9677, (888) 720-9677.

We'll see you in a second.

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The Trump administration has put forward a number of tax proposals, including widespread tax cuts and eliminating taxes on tips over time and Social Security benefits.

So what might impact might these have on our wallets?

Still with us, Nancy Qian - James J. OConnor Professor of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences, and Dan Haar, Senior Editor and Columnist at Hearst Connecticut Media.

Remind your listeners, you can ask our experts a question about the proposed tax cuts.

How are they going to impact us?

Can we survive this over the long haul?

Give us a call at 887209677.

Nancy.

Again, the number is (888)720-9677.

I should slow down sometimes, Nancy.

President Donald Trump aims to remove taxes for individuals earning less than $150,000 per year.

Newsweek reported that in 2022, 93% of Americans aged 15 and over would fall in that bracket.

That's a large majority.

How are economists, economists thinking about this idea and how much support is there for this?

So I'm always in support of people getting more for the labor, especially people who are making less money.

I think there's general consensus amongst economists, amongst people of that progressive taxation is a good idea for this country.

So the thing that's unusual about this tax cut, there are two things that's unusual.

One is that the 150,000 threshold is quite high.

Right?

This isn't the bottom half.

This is the bottom 93%.

So that's a lot of people.

So one can ask, is that necessary?

It might make these people happier, but do we need that money for some social programs like schooling or health or social security, Medicaid, Medicare that we were talking about earlier.

And the other thing that's unusual is the threshold rate.

It's one thing to have a progressive taxation that, you know, where the tax rates are gradually lower as people earn less money.

It's another thing to have just this very crude above and below 150,000.

You can ask why is that not optimal?

Well, one reason could be that it's easier to gain if I'm making a $160,000 and this tax here comes through, then I'll just work less so that I fall under $150,000.

And that's not something that we want for the economy.

I understand Dan has some breaking news.

The related this.

We'll get to this in a second.

You're always going to want to follow Dan Haar at CT insider.

But locally, Connecticut, Governor Ned Lamont has plans to cut taxes to what are some of the tax cuts or tax reforms being proposed here in Connecticut?

Well, two years ago, the bigger tax reform happened, and that was about 6 or 7, about $600 million.

The heart of it was the reduction in the tax cuts, unlike with the federal, policy is which is across the board tax cuts affecting mostly the rich, because that's where the taxes come from.

The governor cut only those taxes that at the middle class and the lower earnings areas.

So that was that.

The sort of anyone earning under $100,000 had the bulk of the tax cuts.

So that's.

About how many people is that about?

We had the bottom 93% that we were talking about.

It's most taxpayers.

But everybody got a cut in Connecticut.

Everybody got a cut.

The question with this one since, the income tax.

Well, that's debatable.

And we've had that debate.

But the point is that was the heart of it.

There was also an increase in the earned income tax credit that goes to, low income earners.

And in Connecticut, we now have a situation I don't know about 150,000, but anyone earning under $50,000 generally does not pay any state tax, either because of the tax schedule itself or because of the earned income tax credit.

There also has been an increase in the property tax credit for largely for homeowners, but everybody can take it if they have enough property tax.

So what would be next then?

Would it be the property?

I know Joe Judge along has been talking about, a lot about yeah.

Well is that where we that there's a lot on the table.

Joe Dillon yes, there are, there are, there's a lot on the table.

There are people talking about a, a child tax credit.

That's not likely to happen because of the pressure from the federal government.

Connecticut has pressure to not cut taxes.

The governor has proposed only a very modest tax cut, essentially an increase in the property tax credit, but only by $50 from $300 to 350 for income eligible people, and some small fees that he's proposed cutting Democrats in the state Senate especially.

I spoke with Senator Looney, the Senate president pro tem.

He would like to see, as always, a capital gains tax cut.

That's not going to happen.

He'd like to see it.

The child tax credit will be debated, but I don't think it's going to happen.

Nancy, let's go back to the federal government here.

And maybe a magic, magic accounting strategy as I as I understand it.

Is there a way is this possible to keep the tax cuts without reducing spending elsewhere?

Mike Johnson, as I understand it, is open to a plan that makes the cuts appear to cost nothing.

Thanks to some kind of accounting measure.

That's according to political.

They reported that.

Can they actually do that?

And how would that work?

So you know that, a lot of people have been doing estimates of how much we're going to gain from the tariffs, how much we're going to lose from the income tax cuts.

And you know, let the reasonable estimates show quite a lot of losses from the income tax cuts.

So for example, if we're waving in taxes, if we go to zero for everyone who's earning less than $150,000 per year, the as it's only income tax that's subject to this, we're looking at $10 over the next ten years that the federal government would not be making.

If we're doing this income and worker payroll tax, we're looking at a $15 trillion.

Right.

And if we take that's how much the government is losing from these tax cuts.

So now let's think about how much the government is going to gain from, you know, their revenue earning proposals like tariffs.

So the most optimistic number we've had, again from Peter Navarro a couple of days ago is $6 trillion over the next ten years.

So these are, you know, again, all of these numbers are ballpark.

The six is not ten.

Six is definitely not 15.

So there is a revenue gap.

Where is that going to come from.

It seems like unless if the US goes into more debt, which the Republicans in Congress really don't want, then we will have to cut spending and public programs.

Would they, for instance, raise the debt ceiling, something that they complained about?

I understand it when when Democrats wanted to do this, would they, for instance, raise the debt ceiling and then not cut programs and just go ahead with the tax cuts anyway?

Is that so?

I am not I'm not I'm not inside the brain for lawmakers.

But is that a possible is that something that can actually be done?

I think at this point, anything is possible.

They can raise the debt ceiling.

They can, you know, like because the reason I'm saying that is a lot of things that we don't typically think of as being Republican is being proposed.

So, you know, including this income tax cut for everyone under $150,000.

I just want to remind everyone that the traditional Republican tax, income tax preference, you know, the libertarian is the proposals from the Bush administration or earlier administrations has been a flat income tax where everyone pays the same percentage, but everyone pays somewhat, right?

They have not.

They have typically been against progressive taxation or, you know, very progressive taxation.

And they have been typically against people not paying any taxes.

So what we're seeing now is just not what we've seen historically from either party, which is why I say anything's possible.

Wow.

That is very important to to talk about the fact that we are in unprecedented and unchartered waters.

Just want to just follow up with you here.

If they do kind of go ahead with these strategies, still have that increased pressure on the debt to GDP ratio over time, I would imagine.

What are the ramifications of extending the tax cut in a way that essentially zeros out costs?

I don't think it's possible to extend all these tax cuts without, without, cutting programs.

I think what you're asking is, you know, what, if we don't cut the programs and we just spend more into debt, just carry more debt?

And I think, you know, so people have different views on this.

So some people think that, oh, you know, it's real.

We have to have a balanced budget.

That's terrible.

On the other hand, we look at Japan that's been carrying tremendous debt for decades and they just keep chugging along.

I think, you know, my view and the view of many economists is that as long as our economy and our government is functioning more than others, so as long as people have confidence in the US economy, we can carry on debt as long as the US is the safest place for people around the world to put their money, we can carry debt.

People will keep buying our treasury bills, people can keep buying our bonds.

People will keep investing in the American economy as long as we look better and safer than other markets.

I was feeling that the report was coming.

Is the buck coming somewhere?

I'll give you one.

How do you expect confidence in the US economy to to to remain in force?

And I agree 100% that that's the key.

As long as money keeps coming in.

But first of all, the debt levels are at dangerously high levels.

And Trump keeps saying that debt is bad and Republicans keep saying it and they keep increasing the debt.

He increased the debt by $7.8 trillion in the first term.

But the point is, if you keep beating up your allies and you launch a global trade war and you are imprecise at all times about what you are doing, that doesn't increase the sort of confidence that we need to maintain that debt.

That's important.

That Dan just said that because that's what the center for American Progress, they are a liberal think tank, but that's what they've been citing a lot of the times.

They're looking at the Reagan tax cuts.

They're looking at some things that happened, in the early 2000, and they're looking at what that does over time.

And you're talking about that 7.8, increase in debt, $7.8 trillion.

I think we are.

I think we have to take a step back here and realize that we are having this discussion about policy as if the goal were to have a stable regime, a stable tax system.

That's not these are people that are trying to attack government spending altogether, not people who are trying to make government work better.

I know, but we're trying to be fair and balanced and trying balance and trying to give the benefit of the doubt to the administration and assume that things are going to go well and do this.

But as you guys are saying, it's kind of hard to do that.

So, so, so what we're saying is it's going to be hard to essentially just spend baby as a strategy or, just zero out the costs.

It's it's going to have to come with cutting programs.

And that's still, obviously going to hurt people and it's going to hurt the economy.

It sounds like.

Nancy, would you would you agree with that?

I would agree with that.

If we're cutting taxes and if we're imposing tariffs, which can raise revenues in the short run, but that's not great for the American economy in the long run.

All of that money has to come from somewhere.

Right.

And you know, and all this discussion of tariffs, you know, we haven't pointed out that, yes, at a very high price for those roller skates, we can bring back roller skating manufacturing into the United States.

But even when we do that, because you're higher price, we will be buying fewer pairs of roller skates.

So there will be fewer manufacturing jobs.

It's not like we can take all of the those jobs making roller skates in Bangladesh or wherever.

And we can just move all of those jobs back to the US with tariffs.

Well, we move it back to the US.

There will be fewer jobs.

Right.

So all of this is really cost cost borne by the American consumer but cost borne by dirt, you know, where is that money going to come from?

Dan we got 30s.

I can only go to you on this, but you got some breaking news.

I understand it here.

I just it helps us with the tariff.

Yeah it does.

I just texted the head of the generators.

The electric generators Association.

There's been a lot of talk about hydropower.

Is it tariff?

Is it under a tariff as of today with the start of the tariffs he does not know.

This is chaos.

Chaos leads to disruption.

Disruption leads to recessions.

It's not very hard.

Volatility doesn't sound like a good thing.

Thank you so much Dan Haar for your reporting this hour.

Thank you so much for coming on the Wheelhouse.

Great to be here!

CTinsider.com senior editor and columnist for Hurst Connecticut Media.

And of course, what a fabulous conversation we had with Nancy Qian.

I hope you'll come back to the Wheelhouse.

I hope you, eat some pizza with us once you come to Connecticut one of these days.

But we'll see you once you get back to America.

Thank you for joining us from Rome today.

Thanks.

It was my pleasure to be with you guys.

Managerial economics and decision sciences at Northwestern University.

Thank you so much for coming on!

After the break, how is the state grappling with the need for increased voter access and concerns over ballot fraud?

Join the conversation.

(888)720-9677.

More with Ebong Udoma after this break.

This is the Wheelhouse from Connecticut Public Radio.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

Right now, Connecticut lawmakers are considering several bills that would increase oversight of local elections.

The bills are a direct response to the ongoing election scandal in Bridgeport that started in 2023.

A lot to unpack there and well do it with a veteran reporter.

Joining us now via Zoom, Ebong Udoma.

Good morning, Ebong.

Good morning.

How are you?

I'm doing well.

I'm doing even better now that I see you in that dazzling zoom display that you have been very good to talk to you.

I want to get right to the questions here.

In a recent public hearing, lawmakers in the state General Administration and Elections Committee, they heard testimony on two bills.

One is SB 1515, the others 1516.

Those are the numbers.

What are they?

I don't I didn't quite follow.

These are the two bills.

Sorry.

These are the two.

The two bills?

The two big bills that they're.

They're talking about, as I understand it.

One there may be trying to look at, whether or not people can get close to voting boxes.

Excuse me?

Candidates can get, closer to the ballot boxes and then I understand, one might involve a monitor.

Those are the the two big?

Yes.

There was a monitor.

There was a monitor that was appointed for Bridgeport.

That's no longer the case now.

And so they're trying to see if they can, that monitor have legislation that would require monitor, to continue in Bridgeport.

And there's some pushback on that.

But those are the two things.

Basically, what what is happening is there's a, court case that's going on right now involving absentee ballot fraud in Bridgeport.

The five people who are on trial, the it was the fact that the ballot, the absentee ballot boxes had a video surveillance, and it was that video surveillance that was, responsible for, getting some evidence that that was used to actually, indict five people in Bridgeport from stuffing absentee ballots.

And one of them is the vice chair of the Denver Public Electoral Committee, who's a long time, Mayor Joe Gannon, supporter and election worker.

Basically what they're saying is that, you know, the laws us so that you, you cannot have if you're not a person cannot put in more than one ballot in the box at the same time because, what what what we saw was several people put in several ballots into into the, into the box at the same time.

So that's one of the, one of the, one of the laws that they're looking at.

It would be, restricting the amount of ballots you can put in at the at the same time for a person to put into a ballot.

Back to the monitor part of the conversation.

Could you help us understand what a monitor is and does?

Well, what happened in Bridgeport in the last mayoral election was that, the state appointed someone to oversee the.

Because normally, the election process is, is controlled by, town officials.

So what the state did was have someone oversee what the town officials were doing.

And that's what that's basically the function of the monitor.

That's the second mayoral primary as, Ebong was, alluding to there had to be to because of, a scandal there.

The he's talking about five Democratic officials charged in Bridgeport facing more than 150 counts of election related crime stemming from an absentee ballot scandal, alleged mishandling of ballots that led to not one, but two, mayoral primaries, the first one obviously being overturned.

These are obviously a direct response to that.

And help us understand to about maybe even enacting a policy where candidates can only be a certain distance from the ballot box.

But basically what we have on Election Day is that, people cannot there's a certain distance if you if you, if you're if you voted, you've seen that there's a certain distance that people, are.

Supposed to stay away from the actual, 370.

Five.

75ft rule.

Yeah.

Basically, I believe that's what they're trying to do for absentee ballot voting as well.

And it's not like Joe Ganim, is in this video.

As a result of what's happening in this or whatever candidate from Bridgeport was close to the ballot box.

So that doesn't, I guess, directly tie in.

Not to.

What happened.

But the Republicans, pushing back, they say none of this really does anything.

And they, actually pushing back on some of the legislation that, would increase voting access.

Also, early voting and, same day registration, which is stuff that the, the legislature is taking up right now, because last November, voters went to the ballot, they approved, an amendment to the first, basically amendment of the Constitution that would allow for same day registration and voting in Connecticut.

And, so they'll, we also have no excuse absentee voting now.

So that's making it that's opening up, making it easier for people to vote.

And Republicans have been pushing back and that saying that we already have a situation where absentee ballots are being abused.

Now, making it easier for everyone to vote absentee is not the way to go.

They're saying the situation is ripe for scandal.

Scandal making national news.

Obviously.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, quoted in a Fox News story as saying she'd like to find out if there's a, quote, larger, coordinated effort to defraud voters statewide in Connecticut.

How?

Well, she's.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

She mentioned that, but she hasn't really done anything about it.

What what what what happened?

Well, shortly after that, President Donald Trump signed an executive order.

Voting on elections.

There's been a lot of pushback in Connecticut on that because they feel that, that, the president does not have the authority to get involved in in the voting process.

So just lastly, to to finish up, here.

So you told us what Republicans are saying.

You talked about the federal government potentially getting involved.

Doesn't seem like they may.

I want to know whether or not the attorney general of the state of Connecticut will get involved, as he's being prodded to number one.

And then help me understand, what advocates are saying here, like a Bridgeport generation now about these measures.

Sorry.

Go ahead.

Well, let's start with with the local, advocates like virtual generation.

Now.

They feel that the Democratic Party in Connecticut is not doing enough, to deal with this issue, and they feel that they should do a lot more.

However, you know, the the governor, Ned Lamont says they're doing more than enough.

They said not that they're doing more than enough.

They're doing what they need to do.

That's why we have five people on trial right now in Bridgeport for absentee ballot fraud.

And then the attorney general, William Tong.

Do we know what he's saying about all this?

I don't think he's getting involved with this.

And he would only necessarily have to get involved.

It sounds like, if Pam Bondi were involved.

If that.

Happened.

He's he's really he's really engaged with the Trump administration on so many levels right now and actually said that, he would he was pushed back on the fact that the president was trying to get involved in local voting by signing that executive order so that, the president does not have any authority to get involved in local elections.

Somebody who agrees with that is Stephanie Thomas.

And you covered Stephanie Thomas.

Recently.

I got to push people to your website at WSHU.org where you'll that Ebong Udoma is a senior reporter there, go there right now to to hear what, Stephanie Thomas had to say about the white House and a recent executive order Ebong Udoma, thank you for coming on the Wheelhouse quick today.

Thank you.

Frankie.

Thank you.

You're the best.

I appreciate it.

Today's show produced by Chloe Wynn.

Great show.

It was edited by Robyn Doyon-Aitken and Meg Dalton.

Our technical producer is Dylan Reyes.

Thank you so much to Megan Fitzgerald, our Visuals team here and our wonderful Operations team as well.

Connecticut Public.

Thank you to Susan Bell and, Bill Sencio as well.

Download the Wheelhouse any time on your favorite podcast app.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

This is the Wheelhouse.

Thank you for listening.