In N.H., Christie calls for tax cuts

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Gov. Christie attacked President Obama's economic record while calling for lower income and corporate tax rates during a speech Tuesday, the latest installment in a push to gain presidential ground in the first-in-the-nation primary state.

Christie, who also called for a less restrictive approach to government regulation and a national energy strategy that would include completion of the Keystone XL pipeline, said the Democratic president's "high-tax, heavy-regulation" policies were responsible for a slow economic recovery that has taken a particular toll on the middle class.

"Under this president, we have a roaring financial markets economy for the wealthy and a weak real economy for the middle class," the Republican governor said in a 53-minute speech at the University of New Hampshire at Manchester.

"The left loves to harp on" income inequality, Christie said, accusing Obama of making "income inequality worse - and materially worse."

Christie proposed lowering tax rates "for all Americans," including a reduction in the top income-tax rate from 39.6 percent to 28 percent. He said he would cut the number of income-tax brackets to three and drop the lowest rate - currently 10 percent - to a "single digit."

He would also cut the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. Christie said his plan would be at least revenue-neutral, after eliminating and changing deductions in the personal and corporate tax codes and other unspecified measures.

The speech was the second policy address in recent weeks for Christie, who has been trailing potential Republican rivals in polls on the 2016 presidential race. The governor outlined a proposal to overhaul Social Security and Medicare last month in New Hampshire. He has said he will decide whether to run by early summer.

"It seems he is trying to stand out as the policy guy, to throw meat on his bones," said Dave Carney, a New Hampshire-based Republican strategist who previously served as Texas Gov. Rick Perry's top political adviser.

While "substance never hurts" in New Hampshire, Carney said, "time will tell how long he has this niche to himself."

At a town-hall-style meeting later Tuesday in Pembroke, Christie told a crowd gathered inside an American Legion hall that he would return next week to give a speech on foreign and defense policies.

"You all have a right to know, for those of us who are considering running for president, what we would specifically do," Christie told the group. "You don't need any more surprises in Washington, D.C."

To reporters after the meeting, he said, referring to two potential rivals, "You don't see Jeb doing this. You don't see Walker doing this."

Christie's proposal Tuesday did not include enough details to determine whose taxes would be cut as a result, said Roberton Williams, Sol Price Fellow at the Tax Policy Center and a former deputy assistant director at the Congressional Budget Office.

"Until we know which tax preferences are being cut how, we can't say who's going to pay more or less," Williams said, noting that Christie also had not specified what his middle tax bracket would be, or what exactly the lowest bracket would be.

Christie said later Tuesday that he would give further specifics on the tax plan, describing his proposals "a good start for conversation."

Democrats immediately criticized Christie's proposal, pointing to his record in New Jersey, which has lagged the nation in recovering from the recession. While a year earlier, the nation had recovered all of its private-sector jobs lost during the recession, New Jersey has recovered only about 65 percent of its private-sector jobs lost.

"The governor now wants to do for the country what he's done for New Jersey: produce a stagnant economy that helps the wealthy at the expense of the middle class and working people," said New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester).

Ryan Ellis, tax policy director for the conservative Americans for Tax Reform group, said Christie's plan "sounds like [a] net tax cut to us." He noted a line in Christie's speech that his proposal wouldn't become a "Trojan horse" for tax increases.

Christie would give companies an opportunity to repatriate overseas profits at a onetime tax rate of 8.75 percent, compared with the 35 percent rate in place now.

The framework of Christie's tax plan - lowering the tax rate while broadening the base of taxation - is similar to what previous Republican candidates have proposed, including Mitt Romney, said Lanhee Chen, former policy director to Romney's campaign.

Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics, said that reducing the number of income-tax brackets would make it more difficult to ensure that low- and middle-income earners aren't paying more.

Reducing the corporate tax rate to 25 percent while not raising net revenue would be "tough" but "doable," Zandi said.

Obama has proposed lowering the rate to 28 percent and using the revenue to fund infrastructure spending.

Zandi said Christie's idea to eliminate the payroll tax for those under 21 "merits consideration," as long as the government found additional revenue for Social Security.

Christie said his plan would return the U.S. economy to 4 percent annual GDP growth. But Zandi noted that the United States has not experienced such growth on a sustained basis since World War II. Average annual growth has been about 3 percent since then, he said.

A rate of growth consistent with creating enough jobs to grow the economy is about 2 percent to 2.5 percent, he said.

Christie seemed to get a friendly reception in Pembroke, where the town-hall discussion veered from immigration to guns to quarterback Tom Brady. At one point, Christie said he'd been "psychoanalyzed" more than any other potential candidate, describing how reporters ask, "Am I too direct?"

"No," some voices responded. One person said: "You're what we need."

"There's none of the pandering crap. He's in your face," said Frank Guimont, 51, of Penacook.