Paul McNamara, Fairfield County Bank chairman; Lawrence Kudlow, CNBC’s senior contributor and David Schneider, Fairfield County Bank CEO.
“I love this country. It is still a beacon of light. We have not had our best years recently, but we will have them again,” said Lawrence Kudlow, CNBC’s senior contributor, after being introduced by Paul McNamara, Fairfield County Bank’s chairman of the board.Mr. Kudlow addressed an audience of nearly 400 on the economy, the stock market, and politics at Rolling Hills Country Club in Wilton on Nov. 16.
Kudlow described himself as a “free market guy,” a “growth guy,” a “Reagan guy.” He said that “growth solves a lot of problems” and “the people in our country are cranky because there are not enough jobs, there is not enough income, and there is not enough optimism.” He went on to say that the United States has seen extremely slow growth at 2% and that the 80s and 90s were years of prosperity. Now what the country needs is new leadership to build an economy that is “strong at home,” he said. This stems from Kudlow’s belief in President Ronald Reagan’s paradigm that if we are “weak at home that we will be weak abroad” and conversely if we are “strong at home we will be strong abroad.”
Kudlow believes the economy is “not all bad and it’s not all good.” We are not in a recession, but we are not booming either — just experiencing an absence of growth. He does not believe the Federal Reserve should raise interest rates every month or quarter because of such indicators as falling oil prices (which he believes will continue to fall due to fracking), commodities, gold, a strong dollar, and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) staying flat. He said he hopes the Federal Reserve goes very slowly when it comes to hiking interest rates in this delicate economy.
Kudlow further went on to state that “business is not great” except in states that are more hospitable — lower taxes and fewer regulations. Business investment has not moved in 20 years because no one wants to make a long-term commitment, he said. Profits are being taxed and businesses cannot be successful that way. He believes the economy’s biggest obstacle is the corporate tax. He called for remedies that include slashing the corporate tax rate from 40% to 15%.
“Re-patriation will pay for itself in five to six years, and this will bring capital back to the U.S.,” he said. Small businesses should have access to a lower tax rate. The business code is stifling and one of the reasons that we are not competitive. Regulations need cleanup, and we cannot make it so difficult to do business here, he said. These changes would benefit middle class wage earners as well. “I would rather put money in people’s pockets and encourage them to spend and invest it.” Slashing corporate taxes will stimulate growth, and interest rates will rise naturally. “We know what to do; we just need to do it,” he said.
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