In a new effort to reboot his flagging campaign, with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton having established an average 10 per cent lead in six major polls, Donald Trump has turned to his plans for the economy — a perceived area of his strength.
As Trump prepared to unveil on Monday his policy to stimulate growth and create jobs in a big way, his advisers were quoted as saying that he would focus on trade, taxes, regulations and immigration as part of his bid to make America more competitive on the global stage.
Ahead of the policy release in Detroit, indications were that Trump would make a strong push by slashing the corporate tax, trimming regulations and boosting domestic energy production. There has been talk that Trump would pursue a 15 per cent corporate tax rate, down from the current 35 per cent.
Trump has already proposed major tax reductions across the board. According to his website, the highest income would be taxed at a rate of 25 per cent, while there will be no income taxes on single filers making less than $25,000 or families making less than $50,000. Currently, the tax rate on the top income group is projected to be 39.6 per cent.
One of Trump’s advisers was quoted by Reuters as saying that this would be the biggest tax revolution since President Ronald Reagan’s in 1986. The proposed corporate tax initiative is expected to encourage US companies with overseas operations to repatriate profits at a reduced tax rate.
Trump’s plan will also eliminate the estate tax and propose a temporary moratorium on new regulations but moot stronger protections for American intellectual property, a Trump campaign aide was quoted as saying.
Coming as it does after a week of missteps that are thought to have cost him heavily in the polls, Republicans are hoping that their nominee will effectively reset his presidential campaign from now on and “stay on message” to deal with the surging Clinton candidacy.
Clinton will appear before the same forum — Detroit Economic Club — on Thursday to come up with a counter and highlight her own economic policy. As of Monday, the Democratic nominee was sitting pretty with a CNN Poll of Polls, incorporating the results of six major national polls, reported that Clinton had an average of 49 per cent to Trump’s 39 per cent. All these polls (by CNN/ORC, CBS News, Fox News, NBC News/Wall Street Journal, Marist/McClatchy Poll and ABC News/Washington Post) were conducted after the recent Republican and Democratic conventions.
“The new averages reflect a sharp increase in support for Clinton compared with pre-convention polls,” CNN said, noting that its previous Poll of Polls, conducted before the Republican convention, found Clinton ahead by a smaller number — 45% to 41%.
The polls have also thrown up another interesting find: a surprisingly good performance by the two third-party candidates. Gary Johnson, a former Republican Governor turned libertarian candidate, has 9 per cent, and Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, has 5 per cent.