Trump to outline economic plan as he seeks to reverse slide

Published 9:26 am Monday, August 8, 2016

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Donald Trump is focusing his economic message on boosting jobs and making America more competitive globally by cutting business taxes, reducing regulations and increasing domestic energy production.

With a speech Monday to the prestigious Detroit Economic Club, the Republican presidential nominee seeks to reset his campaign and delve into a subject — the economy — that is seen as one of his strengths. It also is aimed at showing that Trump is a serious candidate despite a disastrous stretch that has prompted criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike.

Trump has been immersed in controversy over his repeated criticism of a Muslim-American family whose son, an Army captain, was killed in Iraq, and his refusal for days to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan in Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary. He announced his backing of Ryan on Friday.

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While polls have shown that voters have deep concerns about Trump’s temperament and fitness for office, he fares better on the economy. On that topic, recent polling puts him ahead of or on par with his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. She is set to deliver her own economic speech in Detroit on Thursday, one her aides say will lay out her plan for “the biggest investment in good-paying jobs since World War II.”

When he speaks in the city that has symbolized the nation’s manufacturing plight, Trump is expected to reiterate his plan for reducing the corporate tax rate to 15 percent from the current 35 percent — in an effort to draw new investment — as well as eliminating the estate tax and calling for a temporary moratorium on new regulations.

Among his specific proposals will be allowing parents to fully deduct the cost of childcare from their taxable income. He also is expected to call again for boosting domestic energy production — a plan his campaign estimates can add $6 trillion in local, state and federal revenue over four decades.

An economic adviser to the campaign, Stephen Moore, who helped work on the speech, said Trump’s policies were aimed at boosting economic growth to bolster middle-class workers, whose wages have stagnated for decades.

“We need much, much faster growth if we’re going to have wages rising and salaries rising and middle-class incomes rising,” he said. “How do we get back to a healthy rate of economic growth which we haven’t had in a decade?”