Tips, Taxes, Transformation – Reviving The Economy – with Steve Moore – [Ep. 222]

Linda J Hansen: Welcome. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Prosperity 101® Breakroom Economics Podcast. My name is Linda J. Hansen, your host and the author of Prosperity 101® Job Security Through Business Prosperity: The Essential Guide to Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck, and the creator of the Breakroom Economics online course.

The book, the course, and the entire podcast library can be found on Prosperity101.com. I seek to connect boardroom to break room and policy to paycheck by empowering and encouraging employers to educate employees about the public policy issues that affect their jobs. 

My goal is to help people understand the foundations of prosperity, the policies of prosperity, and how to protect their prosperity by becoming informed, involved, and impactful. I believe this will lead to greater employee loyalty, engagement, and retention, and to an increased awareness of the blessings and responsibilities of living in a free society. Listen each week to hear from exciting guests, and be sure to visit Prosperity101.com.

Thank you so much for joining with me today. I have a repeat guest today, one that my regular listeners will recognize and appreciate. But before I get into the interview, I do want to just remind people that we'd love for you to go to the website, Prosperity101. com. And please become a Prosperity Partner, support us with any amount, but help us keep these podcasts on the air.

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So today, my guest is a fan favorite, a listener favorite, because he is not only wise and knowledgeable and an absolute expert in his field, but he's fun and funny and, witty, and I'm just so thankful to have Steve Moore back with me. 

Steve is a distinguished visiting fellow for the Heritage Foundation's Project for Economic Growth. He is the co-founder along with Steve Forbes, Dr. Art Laffer and Phil Kerpen for the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. He is a prolific author. You've seen him on hundreds of TV interviews and special events. 

And I'm just so thankful to call him my friend. He's been a long-time advisor of Prosperity 101® and loves the mission and purpose of Prosperity 101® and what I do. And to have his economic expertise as an advisor is just an honor. And it's also an honor and pleasure to call him my friend. So, Steve Moore, thank you so much for being back on the podcast. Welcome. 

Steve Moore: Hi, Linda. Great to be with you. I think I was with you on Prosperity 101® from the very start. And it's how many years has it been now? Like 12 years or something like that? 

Linda J Hansen: Well, it's longer than that. Yes. I think I first called you in late 2008 and said, Steve, I have this idea, but I know enough about economics to be dangerous. But not enough to be an expert, so I need your help. 

Steve Moore: What you've done is really spectacular. And I want to help you, you know, we've got a 10X it, so that it reaches 10 times more people than it does. And so, I look forward to working with you over the next couple of years to make that happen. 

Linda J Hansen: Well, thank you so much. Your input and advice has always been valued. You and Herman Cain, our late friend, Herman Cain. You two were the first advisors that I had, and both of you were enthusiastic supporters and gave me great advice and really helped set the tone for the economic policy part of Prosperity 101®, and I'm just forever grateful. 

Well, economics is one of the things we want to talk about in this episode. I saw a social media post recently where a man had pulled up a shopping list from 2020 and compared the same shopping list to the prices in 2024. I don't know if you saw that.

Steve Moore: I’d like to see that I would like to, can you send that to me? ‘Cause that's, that must be a, quite an eye opener. 

Linda J Hansen: Yeah. The difference was astronomical. I think it was something like $400 more or something. It was just crazy. And that effect is just so harmful for the average American family. They can't afford the groceries. They can't afford the gas. The housing costs are just out of this world. People can't buy homes. They are losing homes. 

The inflation tax is such a hidden tax, but there's so much more to what's going on in our economy than just that. As an overview, what would you say we need to be most aware of as we look forward to the 2024 presidential election, but how we restore our nation to economic greatness?

Steve Moore: Well, obviously I'm a Trump economic advisor. So I think it's so critical that Trump be re-elected. And so, what you've got right now is kind of, you know, Trump is on Jupiter and Biden's on Mars. They could not be more diametrically opposed on almost every economic issue. 

I always say that, you know, as just to kind of summarize the difference between these two presidential candidates. And by the way, as we speak, I think it's looking less and less likely that Joe Biden will be the nominee, but Donald Trump, and I'm not, I don't agree with everything Donald Trump says or does, but he is pro-business president. 

He wants American to be, we have American businesses, small businesses, medium-sized businesses, our corporations to be hyper-competitive and outcompete Europeans and China and Japan and other countries. And, you know, this is what putting America first is all about, is making sure that our companies are number one so that they can, you can't have jobs if you don't have employers. And so, we need our businesses to do well so that we can have high-paying jobs for Americans. 

Whereas Biden, almost everything that he has done has been really anti-business and he keeps talking, Linda, about soak the rich, and sock it to the rich. Well, look over two-thirds of those people who are in the top 1%, they're business owners. They're people who built businesses, and we're doing great damage if we are, you know, if we're going to punish the rich and punish our businesses, because that, you know, number one, they'll move or move away.

They'll move operations out of the United States. They will, you know, shrink their operations and they'll find ways to try to evade these taxes. So, you know, I've, you and I have always been in favor of either, well, you and I worked on the 999 Plan that Herman Cain, the late, great Herman Cain put together. That would be like rocket fuel for the U S economy. 

We should have a simple tax system that raises the revenue we needs, doesn't pick winners and losers, broad-based, low rates, and we can make this economy really flourish. Look, I'm going to tell you, I'm optimistic about the U.S. economy if the American people choose correctly. I think Trump can turn around this economy in six to nine months.

I think we could see a burst of prosperity. He's going to lower taxes. He's going to have better trade deals. We're going to produce American energy. We're going to try to get this budget under control. Whether he can do that, I can't say, but there's so many opportunities for this, but we should be growing at 3 to 4 percent instead of we're growing at 1 and 1/2 percent under Biden.

Linda J Hansen: It's so true. And we can see examples of a quick turnaround if we just look at Argentina. I'm sure that you've been watching what's been happening in Argentina. Their policies were sinking that economy there and their inflation rate was high, and their debt was high, and the new president came in and cut the size of government and just made so many changes. And they are just rapidly turning their economy around and bringing more prosperity to the people in Argentina. We can do that here as well. 

Steve Moore: It’s sort of what we call kind of shock capitalism and boy, it's really working. And basically they're cutting government expenditures because they had hyperinflation. They're like 200 percent inflation. You think 10 percent inflation is bad. Look what you get when you hit 200 and they ruined their country.

And Argentina was once the, you know, once the Jewel of South America. It was a hundred years ago. They had a per capita income, which was pretty close to the United States. And, you know, since they moved to socialism, they destroyed the country. Socialism doesn't work. We've got, you know, Bernie Sanders, a leading Democrat who's a socialist.

We have many mayors in the country who are socialists. They call themselves progressives, but one of the things that I think, you know, the people watching and listening to this should understand is that if you think about it, progressives destroy everything they touch. 

Look what they're doing to our large cities, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, New York, you know, Detroit, all these cities are being made unlivable by “progressives.” Look at what's happening in California. People are leaving California for the first time in the history of the country because they just can't stand the high taxes, the crime, the illegal immigration, you know, the filth and the fact they can't do anything about the, you know, people pooping on the streets.

I mean, it's unbelievable that these cities have deteriorated so much and where are they going? They're going to red states. They're going to Florida. They're going to Texas. They're going to Tennessee. They're going to Utah, places that are well run, have manageable taxes and are pro-business. 

And we need to do that for the whole country, but I guarantee you, we cannot tax our way to prosperity. And this idea that Joe Biden says, oh, all we have to do is raise tax on the rich. Come on, nobody. I hope nobody actually believes that. 

Linda J Hansen: Well, along with that, we cannot tax our way to prosperity. So lowering taxes has always brought economic growth and boom. And I'd like to talk about a couple of proposals that Trump has floated in some of his speeches.

One is to eliminate the income tax, which I think would be one and to fund the government through tariffs and things. And I'm not sure, how that would go, but I'd like your opinion on that. But also one that has been catching a lot of attention recently is to eliminate the tax on tips.

Steve Moore: Oh, yes.

Linda J Hansen: And I would love to talk about that. So both things, could we eliminate the income tax and still fund the government? And two, if we eliminate the tax on tips, would that be helping the waitstaff everywhere, you know, the waiters, waitresses all over, the hairstylists and barbers, the Lyft and Uber drivers, would it help everybody who receives tips?

Steve Moore: So, you know, it's funny I saw President Trump. The last time I met with him was about three weeks ago when he was at the, he spoke at the business round table about with the 75 CEOs that, you know, he and I were chatting with, you know, a few others before he went on the stage. 

And I said to him, you know, Mr. President, where'd you get that great idea of not taxing tips? And he said, Oh, a waitress gave me that idea. And I thought, you know, this is a man of the people. He's a man of the middle working class. 

Linda J Hansen: Yes. I'm just going to say, too, like Herman Cain always used to say, if you want to solve a problem, go to the people closest to the problem. Right? And what did he do when he wanted to turn around Godfather's Pizza? He went and talked to the young people working the line. And it was a young man who told him, look at all the product we waste here. 

People don't buy this ingredient, they don't buy that ingredient, they don't do this. And Herman Cain went to the person closest to the problem, and that's what we need to do.

Steve Moore: Yes, it’s so true. And so does Donald Trump.

Linda J Hansen: Yes, he does. That was great. He listens. 

Steve Moore: Trump talks to real people. I mean, when do you think the last time, seriously, when do you think the last time has Joe Biden actually talked to a real person? I mean, he doesn't understand the way the world works. He's been cloistered in the White House. But Trump does. I've seen, I mean, I've traveled a lot with him. He loves talking to people. He gets great idea and you're right. You can go to the source, go to the people on the front lines and they'll tell you how to fix things. 

And so anyway, on the taxing of the tips, you know, my first job was, well, it wasn't my second job actually, but I was a car parker. I was 17 years old and we would, you know, from weddings and at restaurants and parties, we would park people's cars and it was fun because you get to park all these Rolls Royces and Porches, and things like that. 

But, you know, you were, we made our money on tips, you know. And back then to tell you how old I am, you know, back then if you could get a dollar, that was a big deal, you know, a big tip. And some people would tip $5 and that was like, wow, $5. That's amazing. But you know, that money doesn't go as far as it used to does it? 

But the point I'm making is that if you did a good job and you were respectful to the person and, you know, took care of their car and stuff, you get a bigger tip, you know, is pay for performance. Same thing with whether it's a waiter, you know, I believe in tips, you know, a good waiter should, you know, I tried to tip 20%, 25%, a bad waiter, you know, if they're not paying attention to me, I'll only give them 10%, you know, because I feel like, hey, you neglected me.

And the left doesn't like tips, they want to get rid of the tip economy and I want to keep it and so, it's a pay for performance. But the other thing is this puts real dollars into the hands of the working class folks and how is the government going to even be able, how does the IRS know what people's tips are? I mean, what are they going to do? Hire another 50,000 agents and try to track down every waitress and every bartender in America.

I mean, it's ridiculous. So I think you want to help put, stimulate the economy, put reward people for working hard yet, stop the tax on tips. Now on getting rid of the income tax. I don't think Trump really meant he's going to get rid of the income tax. I think what he meant was with his tariff of 10%, and I'm not really in favor of that, but he wants a tariff on 10%, on all things that come in.

And if you're going to do that, at least impose that, you know, use that money to cut other taxes. Like, why don't we get rid of the death tax? It only raises one half of 1 percent of money. It's an obnoxious tax that taxes people third, fourth time, you know. You work hard, like my dad did his whole life, built up a business, you know, paid taxes his whole life, and then when he dies, the government takes half of his money away from him.

That is I think un-American, or why not lower the payroll tax on people? So this, I bet if Herman Cain were alive today, you know, he could come up with some very good ideas about how to do this. But, we, and incidentally, you know, tariff is just a consumption tax on things that come in that, you know, you would have had that kind of tax under the 999 Plan.

So I think Herman Cain and Donald Trump think a lot alike, I think, by the way, I think, I don't know if the two ever met, but I think they would have really loved each other. 

Linda J Hansen: Yes, they did. And they were friends and it was a wonderful thing to know that Herman Cain was actually advising Donald Trump before he became president and cut from the same cloth in the sense.

And I don't know if I ever told you this, but long before the escalator ride, I had been in Trump tower with Corey Lewandowski, talking about how we need to, we needed to let Cain be Cain. And he would need to let Trump be Trump. This was still when it was in the early stages and Corey was really the only person traveling along with Donald Trump, and they hadn't made any announcements yet. But in fact, I was there, I think the day the first t shirts came, they didn't even have the phones hooked up yet.

But, you know, and we told them, if you let Trump be Trump, he can win. But if you let the establishment politician consultants get to him, he will lose. Do not let the establishment consultants change him, and we can see his now. 

Steve Moore: You know, it’s funny you should mention that because I was just, you know, originally it was let Reagan be Reagan. Remember back in the 1980s? You know, I had the real proof. I mean, I feel very blessed. I'm not saying this to boast. I'm saying that because I feel like God smiles on me, but you know, in my career, I've been able to work for the two greatest presidents, the last 50 years, in Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.

And in both cases, oh, they're too extreme. You know, they're trying to, but both of them were extremely successful at rebuilding the American economy. I want to just advise your listeners and viewers next time you're in Southern California, if you've not been to the Reagan library, ‘cause I was out there for the 20-year anniversary of Reagan's death and with, you know, Art Laffer and Peggy Noonan, and we had a wonderful, wonderful, and every time I go to that library, it's the most visited presidential library of all the Presidential libraries. 

And every time I go, I come away inspired, you know, by what this man did in terms of rebuilding the economy. And by the way, I love this, Linda, I've got a photograph. I took a photograph of myself in front of the Berlin wall ‘cause they have a big part of the, so my point is, you know, with big ideas, you know, remember when President Reagan was not, nobody thought the Berlin wall would come down.

But it did, and we freed, you know, hundreds of millions of people all over Eastern Europe. And so, we can never give up. We always have to pursue freedom and liberty, and free enterprise because those are the solutions to all of our problems. 

Linda J Hansen: Well, one of the things that I'd like to say about Reagan, too, and I use this a lot when I speak about what I do with Prosperity 101®. I tell employers, you never know who you may be educating. You never know who that person is in your workplace that may be able to change the world one day, because Ronald Reagan had liberal viewpoints until he worked at General Electric and they had a free enterprise book club. 

And he then read, he was forced to read these books on, you know, free market economy and, you know, free enterprise and capitalism and all of that in his worldview change. So I say, okay, from a workplace education program, Ronald Reagan's worldview changed. 

And years later, he was telling Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down this wall and turning around the American economy at the same time. So, you know, we never know who we are educating and we have to just continue to speak truth and get the truth into the minds and hearts of people who can take it into their spheres of influence.

Who knew that this lifeguard from Eureka, Illinois would one day become this great leader of the free world? And so, employers, I ask you, please use Prosperity 101®, get Steve's books, get my book, get the course, get it into your workplace so we can educate, the people who have not been educated.

You know, we have these people in the workforce, 20, 30, 40 years old, who've never been taught the basic American civics. They've not even been taught the bill of rights. So how do they even know they're voting for someone to protect their rights? You know, they don't even know what their rights are, let alone basic economic facts.

So, we need to re-establish that opportunity to educate them. And that's how we turn this country around, too. So thank you for mentioning Ronald Reagan.

Steve Moore: Well, you know, we want to, you know, work with you, at Unleash Prosperity to try to get this message out. I was, there with you from the beginning when you first put out Prosperity 101®. It's a great document and the whole purpose of that really is to educate the workers of America that, you know, the socialism and progressivism and higher taxes and all these giveaway programs, they are not a way to help people. 

You need to basically have a system where people can pull themselves up and, you know, that's, nobody is happy if they're on government welfare benefits. You know, everyone needs a purpose in their life. Yeah, a reason to get out of bed in the morning . And, you know, work is, this is one of my new pet peeves, but, you know, work is so important, that we got to get people working at a younger age. We have to make sure that people who aren't working and can be working and want to work have jobs.

Because everything shows not only do people obviously have more income when they are working, but they're happier and they live longer and they're healthier. And this idea that we just pay money out to people is so sinister. It's so diabolical because you get people that just have no sense of purpose in their life.

And we have about 3 million people who could be and should be, and mostly men by the way, who could be and should be working, their of working age, that they are not. And then what happens? You have alcoholism, you have drug, you know, fentanyl issues, all of these things. And, you know, people don't have meaning in their life.

And the free enterprise system is what creates the jobs and creates the businesses. And, you know, I always stop, not only do we want people working, and this is an important part about your Prosperity 101®, but we also want to encourage people to start businesses, because that's really the path to personal, you know, and most small businesses fail, two out of three small businesses fail, but there's no shame in that. There's a shame in not trying. 

And then people who do succeed, they hire workers, and that's how our system works. And there's a reason the United States of America is the most prosperous country in the world. And that is because, you know, even though we have moved away from it, we're still, you know, the most free enterprise country. We are the, you know, our currency is the world reserve currency because people have confidence in the American economy that we're going to get this right. 

But that being said, you know, if, if we were to elect Joe Biden again, or Kamala Harris or whoever the Democrats might choose at the time of this, we don't know who that might be, they're going to move the country continuously to the left. 

And we're going to see, and by the way, the people who are going to be hurt the most by these policies are the people at the bottom of the ladder. They keep saying how they, how much they care about working class Americans and poor people, how would they want to do redistribute income, but it's never worked.

Redistribution is not a way to move people out of poverty. It's by jobs and free enterprise. And that's why I love so much what you do, Linda, and we want to really work with you to get that message out because once workers, you know, here's the thing. Most Americans have never even, kids aren't learning this in school. They're not, they're getting propagandized with crazy progressive stuff. And it's amazing that our kids come out as level headed as they do. 

This is a chance to try to erase that indoctrination with the kinds of ideas that have worked since the time of, Adam Smith’s great book, The Wealth Of Nations. And so Linda, let's work together. Let's try to multiply many fold the impact of Prosperity 101® because once people get it, they get it, you know. Once we can convert them, we can really turn the country around. 

So, thank you so much for having me. I've got to run and catch a plane. I've been traveling all over the country for the Trump campaign. I'm in New Mexico right now. I'm off to North Carolina and, you know, because I care so much about every vote counts. Every single vote is going to count. There's going to be a close election. 

Remember the last two elections, Linda, have been decided by less than a hundred thousand votes out of what 150 million votes cast or something like that. So, we got to get our people knowledgeable. We got to get them active in business and politics and you're one of the warriors. So thank you for what you're doing. 

Linda J Hansen: Well, thank you as well. I have one last question for you. if you could, this week, the Supreme court had several landmark decisions come through.

One of them I'd like you to address briefly, and that is the Chevron deference decision, because over time, and I addressed this in Prosperity 101®, you talk about it a lot, how the regulations cripple the economy and cripple business. And that was one of the things that Donald Trump used to help spur the economy.

Steve Moore: This was a big Supreme court decision that it will have, huge impact. And it's a court decision that really restores the constitution is what it does. We have three branches of government in our constitution. And most people know this, although school kids aren't learning it. 

We have a legislative branch that makes the laws. We have an executive branch that carries out the laws, and we have a judicial branch that interprets the laws. And what has happened over the course of the last 50 years or so is the government illegally, and this was Congress mostly, they delegated their legislative authority, their lawmaking authority to unelected bureaucrats, all these A, B, C agencies.

The FDA, the FTC, the FDIC, the, you know, the CFT, I can go on and on and on and you can't even keep track of all these little fiefdoms that have an enormous impact. And what they do is not only are they writing laws without the approval of Congress. Even worse is that then they are the ones that they have, they have their own courts.

And so then if you're a grieved citizen, being by a decision, let's say that the FTC made, you have to go to the administrative, what they call the administrative court that's run by the agency. And guess what? Only less than 10 percent of the time, do these, does a business or a household win against the bureaucrats and government. You know, it's like they're the prosecutor, the judge, and they're the executioner. 

And so this decision, which you're right, is so important, is basically saying, no, you, Congress, illegally delegated this authority to non-elected officials. And no longer can the EPA make rulings. Now, look, we all want clean air, clean water, safe working places, you know, all of those things that are important, a safe financial system, but it has to be approved by Congress, because that's, why else have a Congress?

So this is going to be huge, because I think what you're going to see is a lot of these outrageous regulations that are happening in these agencies are going to be overturned by Congress. And that's a good thing because that's why we elect these people. So I'm really proud of the court for getting this right after 50 years.

Linda J Hansen: Right. That regulatory overreach has been crippling to our economy and to all the businesses. And as I started to say before, that was one of the things that president Trump did so well in his first term is get regulatory, like for every new regulation, he eliminated like three. 

So let's hope he can do that again in the next term. We can restart this economy and get it growing. And, Steve, if people want to follow your work, where should they go? 

Steve Moore: Well, I want people to get our what we call our daily, hotline, which goes out to about a hundred thousand people, and we have a high open rate, where half of the people open it ‘cause they really like the material. I'm not selling anybody at anything. It's absolutely free. There's no Biden inflation here. 

And so just go to UnleashProsperity.com and sign up for the free hotline. I think you'll like it. And if you don't like it, you can just unsubscribe. But, you know, Newt Gingrich the other day told me this is the first thing he reads every morning, which is a high praise, but I think your viewers and listeners will get a lot of value out of it.

Linda J Hansen: I think they will, too. So you can follow Steve at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity and also at the Heritage Foundation, and stay in tune, too.

Steve Moore: By the way, Linda, we changed our name. We are now just Unleash Prosperity. So we made it really simple for people. 

Linda J Hansen: Okay. That is great. Unleash Prosperity. Well, one of my things that I, one of my taglines for Prosperity 101® is how to unleash the power of employers and employees to reclaim and preserve America.

Steve Moore: There you go.

Linda J Hansen: So, we are unleashing. 

Steve Moore: Okay. Thank you, Linda. 

Linda J Hansen: Thank you, Steve. 

Steve Moore: Gotta leave. Gotta catch my flight. 

Linda J Hansen: Thank you.

Steve Moore: Bye. 

Linda J Hansen: Okay. Bye. Thank you.

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