United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Appropriations and Banking Committees and former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, yesterday joined Making Money With Charles Payne on Fox Business to discuss the incoming Trump Administration’s economic agenda.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on cutting wasteful government spending through the new Department of Government Efficiency: “They should look and see what happened back when the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was put into place. What we’ve seen is federal revenues increase as a result of the capital expenditures that were made as a result of the incentives that were in that act. And if you think about it, Elon Musk [and] Vivek Ramaswamy are coming in with a massive effort to, basically, overhaul the federal government. This is one of the most wasteful bureaucracies I’ve ever seen, and there’s huge opportunity there to cut spending, to cut waste. That’s where we should be focusing our efforts, and again, doing everything that we can to incentivize capital investment, because that capital investment will yield a return; you know this better than anybody, Charles. And that return on investment will drive greater efficiency and greater economies here in America. America will be stronger again. That will support [a] stronger military; that’ll support [a] stronger diplomacy. It all works the way President Trump is viewing it right now […] There are a lot of areas, with all the ones you mentioned, if they remain untouched, you’ve still got plenty of opportunities. You look in the mandatory spending realm, there’s billions upon billions of dollars that are just in the other category. I think when Elon and Vivek get a laser focus on this—they’re putting a team together right now—there is a tremendous amount of opportunity. And again, as our economy begins to grow with more capital investment, which is exactly what President Trump will incentivize, we’re going to see revenues move in the right direction as well. But let’s cut the excess spending and waste. We can do this. There is a massive opportunity here in Washington D.C.”
Hagerty on the worldwide impacts of President Trump returning to the White House: “The Trump effect is real, Charles. It’s been taking place ever since he won the election. The [European Union] immediately broke out and said, wow, maybe we should stop using Russian natural gas and use U.S. LNG. It makes so much sense. President Trump will lift the LNG export ban immediately. That has to be one of the dumbest geostrategic moves I have ever seen. The Biden Administration, of course, proud of this. We are going to be in a position very, very soon to become the strongest geostrategic partner of every nation in the world because of our abundant energy. We’re going to get back into business again. If you think about our financial markets, the most robust in the world, you’re the best commentator on this, we’ve got to make certain that those financial markets are strong. They’re not getting diverted on social policy issues. They’re not being regulated out of existence. We have the opportunity here to make America stronger than ever, and that’ll make us a tremendous ally around the world. Look, look at what happened; The Qatari have kicked Hamas leadership out immediately after Trump takes office. You see the UK stepping up their defense expenditures; they’re going to go to 2.5 percent of GDP, again, immediately after President Trump wins his election. It’s already happening. We’re going to see the world a lot safer place, even before President Trump steps into office.”
Hagerty on the need to apply economic pressure on our adversaries: “The economic pressure can, and will be, real. This current Administration uses a $60-a-barrel cap. I remind them that oil wasn’t at $60-a-barrel when President Trump was in office. You think about it: Russia was at breakeven when President Trump was in office. They didn’t have the resources to do this. As soon as Joe Biden comes and wages war on domestic energy here in the United States, he raises energy cost worldwide. What does that do? That puts Russia in a financial position to wage war anywhere they’d like. So, you think about the missteps of the Biden Administration and the fact that that has precipitated the war in Ukraine. It’s precipitated the war in the Middle East. All of this has to do with the non-enforcement of sanctions. The next Treasury Secretary has a great opportunity to come in and bring peace around the world by the enforcement of sanctions that are already on the book.”
Hagerty on the need to bring back oversight to the Federal Reserve: “It’s terribly powerful, as you say, Charles. And I think the oversight, particularly, should be focused on the areas where the Federal Reserve takes regulatory action. If you look at what the Vice Chair for Regulation Barr has been doing, in terms of the Basel III Endgame, overstepping his bounds, in my mind, tremendously. If you look at what’s happening at the San Francisco Fed, writing papers on climate change, rather than actual supervisory work that they should have been doing, and they stand by and watch Silicon Valley Bank fail. There needs to be some supervision at the Federal Reserve. They’ve gotten off the rails in a number of places. They need to stay out of social policy. They need to get back to regulation. I think that’s a very appropriate area for oversight.”
