A More Compassionate Free-Market System

Pelosi Advocates 'A More Compassionate Free-Market System'

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/pelosi-advocates-more-compassionate-free-market-system

(CNSNews.com) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Friday that comprehensive immigration reform and a higher minimum wage would do more to lift Gross Domestic Product than the "tax scam" passed by Republicans.

She said those factors would produce "a more compassionate free-market system."

Pelosi spoke shortly after the Commerce Department announced that real gross domestic product increase at an annual rate of 2.1 percent in the second quarter, down from 3.1 percent in the first quarter.

The Commerce Department noted that consumer spending, the "engine of the U.S. economy," surged at an annual 4.3 percent rate in the second quarter, as spending on goods rose at the fastest rate since the first quarter of 2006.

But Pelosi said bringing "everybody" into the system -- meaning people who came here without legal permission -- would do wonders.

At her final news conference before the August break, Pelosi noted that President Trump said he would achieve 3 percent GDP.

I do think that our GDP will rise when we have -- when we raise the minimum wage and people have more purchasing power because these are people who will spend, inject demand into the economy and therefore our GDP will rise.

I think if we had comprehensive immigration reform, where everybody is brought into the system in the way that is most productive -- economists tell me, you want to grow the economy, have comprehensive immigration reform. And how we not just have trickle down to grow our economy, but how we have bubble up.

That's a difference of opinion between our two parties. I think what you saw was that the tax scam that they put out there has not produced the growth that the president was boasting would happen. And that it hasn't produced the revenue. Hence we've had to lift the debt ceiling earlier than maybe people had expected. So that didn't work. It didn't pay for itself, and it isn't growing the economy to the extent that the president said it would.

And so I think we have to instead of giving tax breaks to the top 1 percent -- 83 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent -- we should have a more compassionate free-market system which rewards work and brings many more people into the prosperity of our country.

That consumer confidence, that spending, that injecting demand, I think, will accelerate the growth of our GDP.

To Democrats, "comprehensive immigration reform" means a pathway to citizenship for many of the people living here and still coming here illegally. The Democrat-controlled House has passed a bill raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, but it is not expected to pass the Senate.