Braun focuses on tax cuts, immigration

CHESTERFIELD — U.S. Senate candidate Mike Braun said he will act as a “key reinforcement” for President Donald Trump if elected to office this November.

Braun spoke at a Madison County Reagan Club PAC joint fundraiser earlier this week, focusing on trumpeting some of the wins he sees by the president, including tax cuts, immigration enforcement and trade deals.

The Republican candidate touted the recently unveiled bilateral trade agreement with Mexico, set to replace the longstanding North American Free Trade Agreement, as a win after “shaking up” international trade with threats of high tariffs or other penalties.

“President Trump’s goal is to fix things that have been baked into trading relationships over a long period of time,” Braun said, “many of them granted when we were helping countries gain strength … What he is trying to do is wean them off of stuff that has become unfair.”

Much of the original NAFTA agreement remains intact with the new trade deal, which experts consider a revision of the older law with updates to provisions surrounding the digital economy, automobiles, agriculture and labor unions. The core of the trade pact — which allows American companies to operate in Mexico and Canada without tariffs — remains intact.

Though it may be mostly unchanged, Braun highlighted new requirements agreed to by Mexico and the United States including a requirement whereby car companies would be required to manufacture at least 75 percent of an automobile’s value in North America, up from 62.5 percent. The deal also required 40 to 45 percent of the car be made by workers earning at least $16 an hour.

“Just getting stuff like that in there that balances the relationship out; and before, no one was wanting to give anything,” Braun added.

The new agreement, which Trump argues will push companies to repatriate manufacturing plants, and lucrative jobs, from Mexico to the U.S., will also help pay for the president’s proposed border wall, Braun said.

“I don’t think anyone believed they were going to get a check from Mexico,” Braun jokingly said in remarks given at the event. “Instead, the wall will be paid for by increased trade tariffs and deals like the new bilateral trade agreement.”

While unemployment remains at near-record lows, wages for those jobs have remained stagnant over decades, and minimum-wage workers across the country have protested and planned strikes for higher pay.

Braun argued it’s up to states, and not the federal government, to ensure companies pay higher wages by offering incentives to perspective employers.

“The beautiful thing in this country is that we have 50 states,” he said. “Indiana does a pretty good job of that … they will incentivize to get high-wage good jobs.”

However, Braun said, companies require tax cuts or the removal of regulations in order to afford the higher wages.

“It’s hard for companies to pay high wages when they have all sorts of costs associated with stupid regulations that don’t make sense,” he said.

The conservative group Americans for Tax Reform has compiled a list that shows that more than 125 U.S. employers announced plans for bonuses and pay increases after the corporate tax rate was cut to 21 percent from 35 percent, after last year’s tax cut.

According to the tax reform group’s tally, at least 2 million American workers will “receive special bonuses” in the wake of tax reform.

“If you were successful, and you made a lot of money, then pass that on to your employees,” he said.

However, he would not be in favor of laws requiring it.

Most of all, Braun said he was focused on supporting President Trump, whom he saw as the only contender who had the capacity to stop a Hillary Clinton presidency in 2016.

“If he hadn’t come onto the stage in 2016 … I don’t think there was a Republican who could have beat him,” he said closing out his speech Tuesday. “And Hillary Clinton would be president and I would be hunkered down wondering how my business is going to stay afloat for the next 10 years.”

Braun is challenging incumbent Democrat Joe Donnelly for the U.S. Senate seat.

Christopher Stephens writes for the (Anderson) Herald Bulletin.

Source: http://www.flyergroup.com/news/braun-focuses-on-tax-cuts-immigration/article_349b67a1-3c63-5bc1-82a5-adafc9575ada.html