Corey wants individual federal tax cuts to become permanent

By Scott Benjamin

SOUTHINGTON – Republican U.S. Senate nominee Matt Corey says he wants President Donald Trump’s eight-month-old tax reform to become permanent for individuals, indicating that it has put more money in their paychecks and stimulated business activity.

The package was partly designed by former CNBC commentator Larry Kudlow of Redding - who now serves as director of the president’s National Economic Council, and economist Art Laffer, who helped write former Republican President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax cut and the state income tax phase out that Connecticut GOP gubernatorial nominee Bob Stefanowski presented last December. The state income tax proposal may have been a factor in Stefanowski’s eight-point victory in the August 14 party primary.

The White House has said recently that the national unemployment rate is lower than it’s been in 18 years and gross domestic product grew a strong 4.1 percent during the second quarter.

Corey said he supports Tax Reform 2.0, which would make permanent the tax reductions for individuals, the doubling of the child tax credit and tax breaks for sole proprietorships.

However, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Cheshire), whom Corey will face in the November 6 election, has stated in a news release that the tax plan “raises the deficit by $1.4 trillion over the next ten years.”

Washington Post columnist George Will wrote this month that the federal Office of Management & Budget is expected to report on September 30, the end of the fiscal year, that there is a $1.085 trillion budget deficit. That is nearly $500 billion higher than where it was during Obama’s last year in office.

Steve Rattner, who served in the Treasury Department under former Democratic President Barack Obama, wrote recently in The New York Times that the job growth during Obama’s final 19 months in office was slightly greater than what it was during Trump’s first 19 months in office.

As he did earlier in the campaign, Corey again said Congress should impose the Pay As You Go controls in which new spending would have to be offset by reductions in other parts of the budget or through increased revenues. He said that would reduce the budget deficit.

Corey acknowledged that there is still wage stagnation and would consider a proposal by U.S. Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit to assist the taxpayers with lower incomes.

Delaney, who is seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, stated in his recent book, “The Right Answer,” that in coming years we’re “likely to see substantial growth in the types of jobs that don’t earn high compensation.”

Regarding trade, Corey said in an interview that he is generally against tariffs but supports Trump’s imposition of 25 percent levies on steel and aluminum since the president is using them as a negotiating tool with China, Japan and other major economies.

After traveling 22,000 miles across the state since he launched his campaign last summer, Corey netted about 77 percent of the vote in defeating Apple sales executive Dominic Rapini of Branford in the August 14 primary.

The Manchester resident, who owns a window-cleaning business that does work across Connecticut as well as operating a pub located in Hartford, has run during the last three cycles for the U.S. House seat in the First Congressional District. He was on the ballot as independent candidate in 2012 and as the Republican nominee in 2014 and 2016, losing each time to Democrat John Larson of East Hartford, who was initially elected in 1998.

Corey, who served in the U.S. Navy, had only raised $28,090 as of July 31, compared to the $121.381 that Rapini had collected.

On another topic, Corey said he is impressed with Stefanowski, a former executive with General Electric and UBS who defeated four rival for the nomination by placing first or second in 164 of Connecticut’s 169 municipalities, according to the Hartford Courant.

“He outsmarted the rest of the candidates,” he said regarding Stefanowski’s strategy to run television commercials two months before the other contenders and visiting the homes of thousands of registered Republicans, instead of just going to public events, to get their signature so he could petition his way onto the primary ballot. He followed-up that initial contact with periodic messages.

“He came out early, he came out strong and he came out fast,” said Corey. “The other candidates were trying to play catch-up to Bob. He had a clear message on taxes and he put it out there.”

Laffer appeared at a news conference and at voter forums with Stefanowski in early December, just 18 days before Trump signed his tax reform, which some consider to be the president's biggest accomplishment to date.

In June, 2017, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, who placed a distant second to Stefanowski in the primary, was the first to announce that he wanted to phase out the income tax, which has been in place since 1991. However, Boughton apparently gained far less traction even though he won the convention nomination 11 months later on the third ballot.

The Hartford Courant has reported that some Republicans now want to hold the primary in June and then, if needed, have a run-off primary in August to ensure that the eventual nominee has at least 51 percent of the vote. Stefanowski captured the nomination with about 29 percent.

Corey said regardless of what happens, he supports keeping the nominating conventions since they are “the heartbeat of the Republican Party” since many of the delegates actively follow of directly participate in the campaigns.

“The Republican Town Committees make phone calls and do mailers,” he explained.

Rapini said this spring he thought it would be better to have a direct primary in May or early June.

”You spend an incredible amount of time with a small group that may be representative of the electorate,” said Rapini of the delegates. “You can’t do newspaper and radio ads with 1,100 people.”

All of the other Republican statewide candidates on the ballot that were endorsed at the convention in May also won in the primary, as did Manny Santos, the former mayor of Meriden, who was the convention nominee in the Fifth Congressional District.

However, Stefanowski didn’t participate in any of the five debates held between last December and April by the Republican State Central Committee and wasn’t even nominated at the convention and then easily won the primary even though he had been registered as a Democrat 13 months earlier and didn’t vote for 16 years.

On another topic, Corey said he objects to Murphy’s immediate opposition last month to the nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Murphy stated shortly after the nomination was announced that Kavanaugh’s position on assault weapons is “way out of the judicial mainstream” and has indicated that his addition to the court would be the “next step in the Republican sabotage of American health care.”

Corey said it is difficult to determine how Kavanaugh might vote on various cases.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Greenwich), who served as a law clerk in the 1970s for former U.S. Supreme Court Harry Blackmun, has said that Blackmun was initially considered to be close in ideology to Chief Justice Warren Burger, who also was from Minnesota and also was appointed by former Republican President Richard Nixon. But Blumenthal has said that instead of becoming the “Minnesota Twins” they ended up having very different voting records.

Blumenthal also has said that former Justice David Souter had a voting record that probably was quite different from what former Republican President George H.W. Bush had envisioned in 1990 when he nominated him to the court.

Corey said it is probably doubtful that in 1987 when Reagan nominated the departing Anthony Kennedy, who Kavanaugh is seeking to succeed, that Reagan thought Kennedy would become the swing vote on the U.S. Supreme Court.

“He said he would be open-minded,” said Corey of Kavanaugh. “He teaches constitutional law. That’s what we want on the U.S. Supreme Court.”

“I would want to sit down and vet this man,” he said. “However, based on what I know, I would vote for the man.”

Corey criticized Democrats for asking for “one million documents” on Kavanaugh, calling it a delaying tactic to prevent the nomination to be considered before the midterm elections.

Corey said he doesn’t believe that the controversial tone for the current deliberations was set in 2016 when Obama chose Justice Merrick Garland and the Senate never formally considered the nomination.

Critics have said that U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other GOP senators overlooked a very viable nominee just so they could then fill the vacancy after the election. When Trump won, he nominated Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was confirmed.

“This is done on the advice and consent of the Senate,” Corey said. “The decision was made not to go forward” on Garland.

On another topic, the GOP nominee said he agrees with Trump that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has become “obsolete.”

The Atlantic has reported that the president has complained that the United States pays “90 percent of the costs of defending Europe.”

Murphy stated this summer during the NATO summit after Trump reportedly insulted NATO allies and threatened to leave the alliance that he was “making a potentially catastrophic mistake by alienating the very countries we rely on most.”

Corey said he doesn’t fault Trump’s comments at the news conference following the July summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, since whatever dissatisfaction the president might have with Russia for reportedly attacking American elections “wasn’t going to be announced to appease the press” after the two leaders had a two-hour closed door meeting.

He said he believes that Trump has made a gallant effort to “bring the two countries together.”

“They’re [the Russians] upset because NATO is on their border,” said Corey regarding Russia’s concern about the treaty organization. “Wouldn’t you be upset if Russia was on our border?”

On a related subject, Corey said he is upset with how Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has conducted the investigation into possible collusion with Russia in attacks on American elections.

“I just think it’s wrong that this investigation has gone on this long,” he said. “Either come out with a report of collusion between this president and Russia or shut this investigation down.”

On separate subject, Corey said he opposes the Medicare For More proposal that Murphy and U.S Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) introduced in April.

They have said the buy-in option would allow both individuals and large employers to purchase coverage through the public program that covers elderly Americans, according to CT Mirror.

Murphy has said the program would pay for itself and excess revenues would be used to increase the amount of Affordable Care Act subsidies and expand that help to more Americans, reported CT Mirror.

“It’s going to undermine 68,000 jobs in the private sector insurance industry,” said Corey regarding his opposition.

Corey said he plans to increase his schedule of public events during the general election campaign in an effort to attract more votes. He said he and Murphy should debate at least three times.