First 2016 Presidential Debate: on Budget & Economy
Donald Trump:
FactCheck: Fed keeps interest rates low, but apolitically
TRUMP: "We are in a bubble right now. The Fed, by keeping interest rates at this level, is doing political things. The Fed is being more political than Secretary Clinton."THE FACTS: This is a recurrent claim by Trump with no evidence to back it up.
It's the Federal Reserve's job to help improve the economy and to the extent that happens, political leaders may benefit. But presidents can't make the Fed, an independent agency, do anything.
Under former chair Ben Bernanke and current chair
Janet Yellen, the Fed has attracted controversy by pegging the short-term interest rate it controls to nearly zero for seven years. It is still ultra-low at between 0.25% and 0.5%, a rate that some economists worry could spark a stock-market bubble or
inflation. Bernanke was initially appointed by Republican Pres. George W. Bush, and reappointed by Obama.
One reason Yellen is keeping rates low is that, in some ways, she agrees with Trump that hiring needs to keep growing to provide jobs.
Source: U.S.News & World Report on First 2016 Presidential Debate
Sep 27, 2016
Donald Trump:
FactCheck: Paid income taxes for 3 years out of 5 in 1970s
Clinton said of Trump's tax returns, "Maybe he doesn't want the American people to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes, because the only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities
when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax." That's not correct.Trump paid federal income taxes in three out of five years from 1975 to 1979, according to a report to the New Jersey Casino Control
Commission, which viewed Trump's tax returns when the Trump Plaza Corporation applied for a casino license in the state in 1981.
Although the returns were not disclosed, the report indicated that Trump paid $18,714 in taxes on $76,210 in income in
1975, $10,832 in taxes on $24,594 in income in 1976 and $42,386 in taxes on $118,530 in income in 1977. Trump reported income losses of $406,379 in 1978 and $3,443,560 in 1979, and thus paid no federal income tax for those years.
Source: USA Today fact-check on First 2016 presidential debate
Sep 27, 2016
Donald Trump:
Our jobs are fleeing to Mexico; China uses us as piggy bank
Our jobs are fleeing the country. They're going to Mexico. They're going to many other countries. You look at what China is doing to our country in terms of making our product. They're devaluing their currency, and there's nobody in our government to
fight them. And we have a very good fight. And we have a winning fight. Because they're using our country as a piggy bank to rebuild China, and many other countries are doing the same thing. So we're losing our good jobs, so many of them.
When you look at what's happening in Mexico, a friend of mine who builds plants said it's the eighth wonder of the world. They're building some of the biggest plants anywhere in the world, some of the most sophisticated, some of the best plants.
With the US, as he said, not so much. So Ford is leaving. You see that, their small car division leaving. Thousands of jobs leaving Michigan, leaving Ohio. They're all leaving. And we can't allow it to happen anymore. [See OnTheIssues Fact-Check!]
Source: First 2016 Presidential Debate at Hofstra University
Sep 26, 2016
Donald Trump:
Worst recovery since Great Depression; we're in a bubble
We have the worst revival of an economy since the Great Depression. And believe me: We're in a bubble right now. And the only thing that looks good is the stock market, but if you raise interest rates even a little bit, that's going to come crashing
down. We are in a big, fat, ugly bubble. And we better be awfully careful. And we have a Fed that's doing political things. This Janet Yellen of the Fed. The Fed is [being] political by keeping the interest rates at this level.
And believe me: The day Obama goes off, and he leaves, and goes out to the golf course for the rest of his life to play golf, when they raise interest rates, you're going to see some very bad things happen,
because the Fed is not doing their job. The Fed is being more political than Secretary Clinton.
Source: First 2016 Presidential Debate at Hofstra University
Sep 26, 2016
Donald Trump:
Not paying income taxes makes me smart
CLINTON: For 40 years, everyone running for president has released their tax returns. You can go and see 39 years of our tax returns. So you've got to ask yourself, why won't he release his tax returns? And I think there may be a couple of reasons.
First, maybe he's not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe he's not as charitable as he claims to be. Third, maybe he doesn't want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes, because the only
years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax.TRUMP: That makes me smart.
CLINTON: So if
he's paid zero, that means zero for troops, zero for schools or health. And I think probably he's not all that enthusiastic about having the rest of our country see what the real reasons are, because it must be something that he's trying to hide.
Source: First 2016 Presidential Debate at Hofstra University
Sep 26, 2016
Hillary Clinton:
No trumped-up trickle-down: reward work, not transactions
TRUMP: Under my plan, I'll be reducing taxes tremendously, from 35 percent to 15 percent for companies, small and big businesses. That's going to be a job creator like we haven't seen since Ronald Reagan. It's going to be a beautiful thing to watch.
CLINTON: We need to have a tax system that rewards work and not just financial transactions. And the kind of plan that Donald has put forth would be trickle-down economics all over again.
In fact, it would be the most extreme version, the biggest tax cuts for the top percent of the people in this country than we've ever had. I call it trumped-up trickle-down, because that's exactly what it would be.
That is not how we grow the economy. We just have a different view about what's best for growing the economy, how we make investments that will actually produce jobs and rising incomes.
Source: First 2016 Presidential Debate at Hofstra University
Sep 26, 2016
Hillary Clinton:
Trump's plan costs 3.5M jobs; mine creates 10M jobs
Independent experts have looked at what I've proposed and looked at what Donald's proposed, and basically they've said this, that if his tax plan, which would blow up the debt by over $5 trillion and would in some instances disadvantage middle-class
families compared to the wealthy, were to go into effect, we would lose 3.5 million jobs and maybe have another recession. They've looked at my plans and they've said,
OK, if we can do this, and I intend to get it done, we will have 10 million more new jobs, because we will be making investments where we can grow the economy. Take clean energy. So I've tried to be very specific about what we can and should do, and
I am determined that we're going to get the economy really moving again, building on the progress we've made over the last eight years, but never going back to what got us in trouble in the first place.
Source: First 2016 Presidential Debate at Hofstra University
Sep 26, 2016
Hillary Clinton:
Jobs for you, not just prosperity for those at the top
We have to build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top. That means we need new jobs, good jobs, with rising incomes. I want us to invest in you and your future. That means jobs in infrastructure, in advanced manufacturing,
innovation and technology, clean, renewable energy, and small business, because most of the new jobs will come from small business. I also want to see more companies do profit-sharing. If you help create the profits, you should be able to share in them.
Source: First 2016 Presidential Debate at Hofstra University
Sep 26, 2016
Page last updated: Nov 30, 2021