Every time the Republican-controlled legislature considers cutting taxes, the biggest obstacle is the taxpayer-funded lobbyists representing cities, towns, and counties. They come down to the legislature year after year accusing lawmakers of “defunding” local government. And, of course, it is always police, fire, and public safety on the chopping block and never DEI programs, art projects, or other unessential and unnecessary spending projects.
The problem with this narrative is that it is completely false. Cities and towns are flush with cash and have actually received enormous windfalls, not cuts, from the legislature. The result has been hundreds of millions in new revenue for the cities in just the last 6 years. Most of it from two sources—online sales and enhanced state shared revenue.
Online Sales Tax Windfall
In 2019, the legislature passed legislation responding to the Wayfair decision, allowing the state and local governments to tax online sales from sellers outside of this state. At the time, it was sold as a “meager” $85-million-a-year tax increase. But now, five years since the legislation was enshrined into law, taxpayers are doling out over one billion dollars in total collections each year to state and local government…
The federal government owns multiple trillions of dollars of federal assets — from land, to buildings, to patent rights, to mineral rights, to immigrant visas, to oil fields to trucks and trains and unused office furniture equipment.
The government could earn well more than $1 trillion and perhaps as much as $10 trillion by selling off these assets that are simply hoarded (figuratively) in the dark and dusty basement of government buildings. These assets could then generate added annual tax receipts once they are utilized for productive purposes.
I’m not talking about selling the Washington Monument or Yellowstone National Park. The sales could and in most cases should be limited to American citizens and American businesses.
I’m referring to NON-environmentally sensitive properties that could be put to use growing our economy and using the money to retire some of our $35 trillion national debt. The sales could and should in most cases be limited to American citizens or businesses.
It’s a win-win for taxpayers, our children (who will be handed a lower debt obligation) and the U.S. economy.
One of the most valuable assets that should be put on the auction block immediately is tracts along the electro-magnetic spectrum. The spectrum contains the invisible airwaves that power mobile phones, Wi-Fi and other wireless technologies such as 5g communications.
In the past, auctioning spectrum rights to telecommunication firms and tech companies has raised more than $100 billion for the U.S. Treasury.
Congress could raise at least another $100 billion in another round of spectrum auctions. This would sell or lease space that the military doesn’t need and that other agencies of government (such as local police and fire departments) are fine without.
This strategy would help stimulate the economy in two ways. First, as in the past, the revenues raised can offset any real or imagined revenue loss from the imperative of making the Trump tax cuts permanent.
A new report by the economic consulting firm NERA, finds that auctioning 100 megahertz of mid-band spectrum that’s licensed for 5G will boost U.S. GDP by more than $260 billion, and create 1.5 million new jobs
On at least four previous occasions, Congress has used dollars raised from spectrum auctions to offset tax cuts in reconciliation packages. That’s exactly what they should do again.
“Effectively allocating spectrum to meet the ever-growing need is critical to promoting American innovation and protecting our national security,” Chairman Richard Hudson said yesterday at the first House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology hearing of the new Congress.
He points out correctly that the U.S. government has been conducting spectrum auctions for the past 30 years, and they have a track record of success. They are much fairer than giving bureaucrats the power to decide who gets spectrum, which can lead to allocations that are politically or ideologically motivated, with the result that spectrum would be used inefficiently (or not at all) by beneficiaries.
Auctions are open and transparent, minimizing the risk of shady backroom deals. They ensure that the spectrum goes to those who value it most and can use it most effectively.
Anyone who is concerned about ensuring the uninterrupted connectivity of our electric grid system and our daily Internet connection should be all for these auctions — especially as the world goes wireless and communicates less through cables and more through satellite beams.
This is also critical to maintaining our technology lead against the Chinese communist government. One Chinese news agency reported last July that, “China’s 5G network now covers every city and town in the country, as well as more than 90 percent of its villages.”
We are dangerously lagging behind and without timely spectrum auctions the gap will grow wider.
Auctions of the spectrum and other federal assets will drive progress and prosperity — and raise revenue to pay for tax cuts or retire our debt that is soon to eclipse $40 trillion. What’s not to like about that?
Stephen Moore is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a co-founder of Unleash Prosperity. His latest book is “The Trump Economic Miracle.”
Here is my wish list for the incoming Trump administration to make America healthy and prosperous and great again in 2025.
1.Slash Job-Killing Regulations
The regulatory state is a $2 trillion tax on the American economy. We all want worker safety, a clean environment and consumer protections, but in too many cases the costs of regulations far outweigh the societal benefits. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to slash 10 rules for every new rule. Just do it, Mr. President.
2. Make The Trump Tax Cuts Permanent
As JFK, Ronald Reagan and others have proven throughout history, lower tax rates lead to more growth, more investment and more jobs. The Trump tax cuts meant that a typical family of four earning $75,000 a year saw their tax bill fall by half — a benefit valued at more than $2,000. And the corporate tax rate fell from 35% — the highest in the world — to 21%, bringing jobs and capital to America. Trump has promised to make all these tax cuts permanent. Why? Because they worked almost exactly as we anticipated they would.
3. Replace Welfare With Work
Growth will require more able-bodied Americans getting off welfare and into jobs. Welfare — which includes cash assistance, public housing, food stamps, disability payments, unemployment benefits and Medicaid — needs to be a hand up, not a handout.
4. Use America’s Abundant Natural Resources
America has well more than $50 trillion of natural resources that are accessible with existing drilling and mining technologies. This is a vast storehouse of wealth that far surpasses what any other nation is endowed with. We can use the royalty payments and leases to reduce our national debt while creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.
5. Cut Medical Costs by Demanding Health Care Price Transparency
One of many ways to bring health care costs down to consumers (and taxpayers, who pay half the costs) is to require hospitals, pharmacies, doctors and health clinics to list prices for what they are charging. The Committee to Unleash Prosperity estimates that $1 trillion to $2 trillion could be reduced from health care costs, with no reduction in the quality of care, by allowing consumers to shop around on the internet for the best price — just as we do when we buy groceries, a home or a car. This will foster free market competition and lower prices.
6. Allow School Choice for All Families
Test scores in America have been plummeting. Kids are graduating from high school — if at all — without even being able to read the diploma. America no longer ranks in the top 10 in many academic achievement ratings.
A child can get a better education at half the cost in the Catholic school system and in many charters.
Trump has endorsed universal school choice for all children regardless of income or ethnicity or race. This is the civil rights issue of our time.
7. Implement A Pro-America Immigration Policy
Trump’s committed to securing our border, but we also need legal immigrants through a merit-based immigration system. This visa system would select immigrants based on their skills, talents, investment capital, English language ability and education level. These characteristics all presage success in America.
8. Revive America’s Great Cities
Our once-great cities in America — from New York to Chicago to Detroit to San Francisco to Seattle — have come to look like war zones. Crime has run rampant. Businesses and people and capital are fleeing and leaving the poorest Americans — mostly minorities — stranded with tragically limited opportunities other than working at Walmart or McDonald’s for minimum wage. Since 2020, our major cities have lost nearly 1 million residents. And tens of thousands of businesses.
Trump wants to revitalize our cities and abandoned rural areas through deregulation, reduction in tax rates, changes in zoning policies and infrastructure investments.
9. Pull the U.S. Out Of The Paris Climate Change Treaty And Other Anti-America Agreements
We must end American participation in globalist treaties that hurt America most. This includes the Paris Climate Accords — a treaty with which most other nations have failed to comply, yet which places huge burdens on American companies and workers. Trump also has pledged to end global taxation — such as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s global minimum tax. Do we even need a United Nations?
10. Finally, Drain The Swamp
There is a reason why three of the five wealthiest counties in America are in or around Washington, D.C. Washington is getting rich at the expense of the rest of us. Fewer than 10% of overpaid federal workers (of which there are more than 2 million) are working full time in the office even though COVID-19 ended three years ago. These are swamp employees that often get paid $150,000 or more a year. Fire them if they don’t show up. And relocate federal agencies in other cities.
These are admittedly bold aspirations for an economic transformation toward freedom and free enterprise. But the one person who can get it done is Trump.
Stephen Moore is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation and a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. His new book, coauthored with Arthur Laffer, is “The Trump Economic Miracle.”
Democratic Candidate for Congressional District 1 Amish Shah was revealed to have attacked former President Ronald Reagan and the entire system of capitalism in a recently uncovered video from 2018.
In the video footage, Shah is heard to say, “What we’ve got is an economic system here that isn’t fair. People have started to realize this finally after years. What happened with Ronald Reagan starting to cut taxes on the very, very wealthy has now given us the society we have, and this is what the real travesty is.”
In full, Shah offered a distinctly socialist rebuke of Reagan-era conservative reforms, tax cuts that objectively revived the U.S. economy after the disastrous Carter Administration.
“We’re institutionalizing inequality this… this is what we’re doing. Um, what… what we’ve got is an economic system here that isn’t fair,” Shah said.
He then began to outline a socialist solution:
“And, and, and this is what the real travesty is: lack of good healthcare for example. Um… an expensive healthcare strips people of assets. Not having affordable education then takes those people and puts them at, those kids, and puts them at a massive disadvantage. And there you go.
What you’re going to get is people without opportunity and then finding themselves in a place where they can’t make ends meet. And we’re funding a school to prison pipeline and …and that’s, that’s not right. That’s, that’s just morally, uh, objectionable way for a society to run.
And so I’m… I’m happy that what we’re seeing within the democratic party is a… a huge progressive movement that’s coming up and saying this is wrong and we’re going to do something about it.”
Shah’s views do not appear to have changed. In a recent debate featuring Shah, he explained his class warfare argument and even vowed to raise taxes on Arizonans. “I’m not in favor of extending the Trump tax cuts because a lot of the folks that were helped by those were wealthy,” said Shah.
NRCC Spokesperson Ben Petersen criticized Shah heavily in a statement, “Amish Shah’s extreme vow to axe the Trump tax cuts represents a declaration of war on Arizonans’ livelihoods. Shah’s class warfare campaign and support for socialism are disqualifying in the first district.”
As previously reported by the New York Post, Shah’s heavily radicalized socialist background has caused significant controversy in recent weeks as ties to Senator Bernie Sanders found him endorsing single-payer socialized medicine.
He recently ran afoul of the City of Tempe for use of mailers depicting a retired Tempe Police officer in full uniform in violation of A.R.S. 9-500.14, which forbids the use of city resources to influence an election.
And further reporting from the Washington Free Beacon also uncovered his rental of a modest condominium in his district and listing of that address for voter registration purposes, instead of his primary residence located in the neighboring third district, in possible violation of Arizona law.
One of the lawmakers responsible for the state’s historic income and small business tax reduction law is key to maintaining Republican control of the Arizona Senate.
State Senator J.D. Mesnard is running for re-election to Arizona Legislative District 13, which covers Chandler, Gilbert, and Sun Lakes in the East Valley of the Phoenix-metro area. Mesnard first entered the state legislature in January 2011 in the Arizona House of Representatives, and he served eight years in that chamber, including two years as the Speaker of the House. In November 2018, after being termed out of the House, Mesnard won his election to the state Senate.
Over his time in the Arizona Legislature, Mesnard has proven himself to be one of the top fiscal responsibility hawks in either chamber. On his campaign website, he addresses his thoughts on this issue, writing, “I support keeping taxes as low as possible, and we can’t have low taxes with reckless government spending. The fact is, the more government spends, the more we pay for it in higher taxes and/or saddle future generations with unsustainable debt. That doesn’t mean that all government spending is bad. For instance, funding public safety, a quality education system, and infrastructure are all necessary public goods. But I also believe that state government should follow the same financial guidelines that any responsible individual or family would follow: spend only what’s necessary, don’t rack up debt, invest in your learning, save for the future, and when times get tough, find responsible ways to trim.”
In 2021, Mesnard was responsible for a historic tax reform proposal that made its way through the Arizona Legislature and into law – SB 1828. This legislation ushered in a flat tax on individual incomes of Arizonans.
Mesnard was also the author of SB 1783, which lowered taxes on small businesses. The bill passed the state legislature and was signed by then-Republican Governor Doug Ducey.
After signing the bill into law in July 2021, Ducey recognized Mesnard for his efforts, when he said, “This tax cut will keep Arizona competitive for small businesses already operating here and new businesses flocking here every day. After a year as tough as the last, we should not be raising taxes on our small businesses — we should be cutting their taxes. That’s exactly what Senate Bill 1783 does. Arizona has now passed the largest tax cut in state history and will have the lowest flat tax in the country. My thanks go out to Senator J.D. Mesnard and Representative Ben Toma for their leadership on this issue.”
Mesnard added, “Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and integral to the future success of our state. Small businesses should be able to grow and reinvest in themselves without being forced to pay astronomical taxes. Rather, government should get out of the way so that they can thrive. That’s why I’m so grateful for the support of Governor Ducey and my colleagues in the Legislature.”
Two staunch free-market advocates Tim Phillips (President of Americans for Prosperity) and Grover Norquist (President of Americans for Tax Reform) wrote a piece in Newsweek, praising the accomplished feat of the Arizona Legislature, spearheaded by Mesnard, and Ducey. They stated, “Arizona, on the other hand, provides a good example: lower the tax rates to let people keep more of what they earn and invest in what they care about most. Limit government spending to grow no faster than the incomes of the citizens who pay the taxes. Create a magnet for job-creating investment and hardworking Americans who simply wish to be left alone to work hard, take care of their families and support their communities.”
Phillips and Norquist put the finishing flourish on their thoughts by saying, “The Arizona reform is a positive model and one that should be followed by other states and the federal government.”
When the Arizona Supreme Court gave the green light for these tax reforms to go into effect in a highly anticipated ruling, Arizona Free Enterprise President Scot Mussi said, “Today’s decision from the Arizona Supreme Court is a big win for taxpayers in our state. The legislature passed historic tax cuts last year that benefit all Arizona taxpayers. It’s time for Invest in Arizona and out-of-state special interest groups to accept this reality and stop making a farce of the referendum process.”
Mesnard touted the progress of his historic legislation in a campaign newsletter in January 2023, saying, “The historic tax reform that I championed in 2021 is now in effect for income earned this year – a full year ahead of schedule thanks to strong government revenues. Valued at more than $2 billion, this reform reduced individual tax rates to 2.5%, resulting in a tax cut for every single Arizona family and Arizona having the lowest flat tax in the nation.”
The east valley lawmaker added, “Depending on your tax decisions, if you choose to lower your withholding rates this year, you will be able to keep more of your own hard-earned dollars with each paycheck that hits your checking account. That will help take some of the edge off sticker shock at the grocery store.”
According to the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, Legislative District 13 is one of the most competitive in the state, with a 1.6% vote spread between Republicans and Democrats in the past nine statewide elections. In those contests, Republicans have won five times, compared to four for Democrats.
Mesnard will be facing off against Democrat nominee, Sharon Winters, in the November General Election. On his website, Mesnard asks voters to give him another term in the state senate, writing, “Now we face historic economic challenges that require someone with the right experience and a track record of success to navigate. That’s why I need your vote. Let me continue using my diverse background, which includes husband (to a registered nurse), father, professor and small business owner, with master’s degrees in business and public administration, to keep delivering results for you.”
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