​Here are highlights from Clinton’s speech: “We need to grow the economy and we need to make it fairer. The tide is not rising fast enough, and it’s certainly not lifting all boats. Since the crash, too many of the gains have gone to the top one percent.”
 
Taxes

• So I’m proposing a new tax credit to encourage more companies to share profits with workers. More broadly, we will fight for a more progressive, more patriotic tax code that puts American jobs first.
• Right now, when a corporation outsources jobs and production, it can write off the costs. We must stop that, and we must make them pay back any tax breaks they received from any level of government in our country.
• For those that move their headquarters overseas to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, they’re going to have to pay a new exit tax. So if they want to go, they’re going to have to pay to go.
• That’s why I support the so-called ‘Buffett Rule,’ because multi-millionaires should not be able to pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries.
• We should also add a new tax on multi-millionaires, crack down on tax gaming by corporations and close the carried interest loophole – something I’ve advocated for years.

Regulation

• Trump would roll back the tough rules that we have imposed on the Financial Industry. I’ll do the opposite – I think we should strengthen those rules so that Wall Street can never wreck Main Street again.
• Trump even wants to abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a new agency that has already returned more than $11 billion to 25 million Americans who were taken advantage of by corporations.
• For example, guaranteeing equal pay won’t just increase paychecks for women – it will boost family budgets and get incomes rising across the board.
• Paid family leave won’t only make life easier for Moms and Dads – it will also keep skilled, talented Americans in the workforce and grow our economy.
• Raising the federal minimum wage won’t just put more money in the pockets of low-income families – it also means they will spend more at the businesses in their neighborhoods.
• And finally, strengthening unions doesn’t just serve members – it leads to better pay and benefits, and working conditions for all employees.

Trade

• But the answer is not to rant and rave – or cut ourselves off from the world. That would end up killing even more jobs. The answer is to finally make trade work for us, not against us. 
• I will stop any trade deal that kills jobs or holds down wages – including the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I oppose it now, I’ll oppose it after the election, and I’ll oppose it as President. 
• So as President, I will stand up to China and anyone else who tries to take advantage of American workers and companies. And I’m going to ramp up enforcement by appointing, for the first time, a chief trade prosecutor, I will triple the number of enforcement officers, and when countries break the rules, we won't hesitate to impose targeted tariffs.

Energy Reform

• N/A

Spending

• We will put Americans to work building and modernizing our roads, our bridges, our tunnels, our railways, our ports, our airports.
• We will also help cities like Detroit and Flint connect underserved neighborhoods to opportunity, expanding affordable housing, and we will repair schools and failing water systems as well. 
• And that means for us, creating an infrastructure bank to get private funds off the sidelines and complement our private investments. $25 billion in government seed funding could unlock more than $250 billion and really get our country moving on our infrastructure plans.
• And we’re going to invest $10 billion in what we’re calling “Make it in America” partnerships to support American manufacturing and recommit to scientific research that can create entire new industries.
• Let’s also expand incentives like the New Markets Tax Credit that can bring business, government, and communities together to create good jobs in places that have been left out or left behind.
• I will also make a major push to empower small businesses and entrepreneurs, with new national initiatives to cut red tape at every level and expand access to credit, especially through community banks and credit unions.
• The people taking care of our children and our parents, they deserve a good wage, good benefits, and a secure retirement.
• So we will fight to make college tuition-free for the middle class and debt-free for everyone. (You should be able to learn a skill, practice a trade, and make a good living doing it.)
• We will support high-quality union training programs. We will propose new tax credits to encourage more companies to offer paid apprenticeships that let you earn while you learn. We will do more, including a national campaign, to dignify skills training across the board. I think we’ve got to reverse what has become a kind of commonplace view, which is everybody needs to go to college.
• I think instead we should expand the Child Tax Credit to provide real relief to tens of millions of working families struggling with the costs of raising children – the same families that his plan ignores.

 
Tax Foundation gave her initial tax plan a tax increase based on dynamic scoring of $191 billion over the next decade. There aren’t specifics outlined in her speech that would necessarily change this estimate, but there are a number of additional expenditures…

Here's the speech: https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/An_America_First_Economic_Plan-_Winning_The_Global_Competition_.pdf

​Quotes from speech on key topics:
 
Taxes

• As part of this reform, we will eliminate the Carried Interest Deduction and other special interest loopholes that have been so good for Wall Street investors, and people like me, but unfair to American workers.
• My plan will reduce the current number of brackets from 7 to 3, and dramatically streamline the process. We will work with House Republicans on this plan, using the same brackets they have proposed: 12, 25 and 33 percent. For many American workers, their tax rate will be zero.
• Under my plan, no American company will pay more than 15% of their business income in taxes.
• My plan will also help reduce the cost of childcare by allowing parents to fully deduct the average cost of childcare spending from their taxes.
• We are also going to bring back trillions of dollars from American businesses that is now parked overseas. Our plan will bring that cash home, applying a 10 percent tax.
• Finally, no family will have to pay the death tax.

 
Regulation

• Upon taking office, I will issue a temporary moratorium on new agency regulations.
• I will also immediately cancel all illegal and overreaching executive orders.
• I will ask each and every federal agency to prepare a list of all of the regulations they impose on Americans which are not necessary, do not improve public safety, and which needlessly kill jobs. Those regulations will be eliminated.

 
Trade

• Because my only interest is the American people, I have previously laid out a detailed 7-point plan for trade reform, available on my website. It includes strong protections against currency manipulation, tariffs against any countries that cheat by unfairly subsidizing their goods, and it includes a renegotiation of NAFTA. If we don’t get a better deal, we will walk away.
• Trade has big benefits, and I am in favor of trade. But I want great trade deals for our country that create more jobs and higher wages for American workers. Isolation is not an option, only great and well-crafted  trade deals are.

 
Energy Reform

• A Trump Administration will end this war on the American worker, and unleash an energy revolution that will bring vast new wealth to our country.

 
Spending

• We can use this new wealth to rebuild our military and our infrastructure.
• As part of this new future, we will also be rolling out proposals to increase choice and reduce cost in childcare, offering much-needed relief to American families.
• We will also give our police and law enforcement the funds and support they need to restore law and order to this country.
• One of my first acts as President will be to repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare.
• We will also rebuild our military, and get our allies to pay their fair share for the protection we provide…
• We also have a plan, on our website, for a complete reform of the Veterans Health Administration.
• We will build the next generation of roads, bridges, railways, tunnels, sea ports and airports that our country deserves.

​Tax Foundation gave his initial tax plan a price tag based on dynamic scoring of $10 trillion over the next decade. There are differences in the new plan, such as the income tax rate on upper income Americans of 33 percent (tax bracket rates are now 12, 25%, 33%)  instead of 25 percent in the initial plan (tax bracket rates were 10%, 20%, 25%), that will likely change this amount.

​This commentary originally appeared in Real Clear Energy on August 4, 2016.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently released a report agreeing with the renewable industries’ dual claim that even though technologies like wind and solar power are now cost-competitive with conventional energy sources, governments should continue to subsidize them. This rhetoric suggests that American taxpayer dollars should continue to prop up the profitability of select companies compared with what the free market would objectively and more efficiently determine.

In other words, the IEA implicitly confirms that by removing government support, many renewable energy companies would collapse like a house of cards because they aren’t competitive without it. Further, the report concludes that without government subsidies for renewable companies, investors would not be comfortable investing private capital.

Why then would the U.S. government want America to put all of her eggs in a renewables basket? Warren Buffet, billionaire and major investor in wind energy, has admitted that wind isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. “The only reason to build them [wind farms]” is the subsidies; “They don’t make sense without” them.

Assertions that renewables are not a profitable investment without taxpayer dollars are based on the industry’s cost structure. Since the bulk of the costs for renewable projects are fixed, the profitability of new projects are dependent on current and future fiscal and regulatory environment.

The IEA report confirms that renewable energy technologies depend more on government action than fossil-fuel based investments. Unlike renewables, coal and natural gas producers can respond to market signals by adjusting their output and operating costs.

Texas is at the center of this debate over preserving renewable subsidies because the state leads the nation with 18.2 GW of combined installed wind and solar capacity. The Texas Renewable Portfolio Standard’s (RPS) goal of reaching 10,000 MW by 2025 was met in 2010, 15 years ahead of schedule. The Texas Legislature now faces a dilemma of whether to increase the costly RPS after long meeting its goal.

Renewable supporters’ strong resistance to Senate Bill 931 in 2015 suggests that the industry is well aware that subsidies are necessary to be competitive. This bill would have eliminated the Texas RPS and make the purchase of renewable energy credits by utilities voluntary. This would promote a return to a more market-oriented approach to renewable energy production rather than one mandated by government. Unfortunately, the bill eventually died in the Texas House.

Since the RPS was not increased or made voluntary, renewable energy credits for new projects have become even more scarce than they were during the boom of projects in the early 2000s. Despite this, Texas has reached 16 GW of installed wind capacity since the boom and now produces roughly 20 percent of the nation’s wind-powered electricity generation.

Given the scarcity of renewable energy credits, how did Texas renewables achieve this growth?

According to the IEA, about one-third of the 4.8 GW of wind power installed in Texas in 2014 was financed using “synthetic power purchase agreements,” also known as hedges. Under these agreements, the power producer sells its electricity directly into the wholesale spot market and receives the prevailing market price. To compensate for the unpredictability of market prices, however, the power producer signs a contract for a financial product known as a “hedge” to provide protection against volatility and increase the stability of future cash flows.

These agreements effectively enable project developers, in combination with federal tax incentives, to secure debt and equity financing required to finance their projects.* Extensive, unregulated use of hedging was blamed for the 2008 financial crisis, though government was also to blame for creating the financial market boom that would eventually bust. Given the incentives in place, financial companies purchased vast insurance against risky markets that ultimately collapsed, followed by the government bailing out many financial firms and over-regulating them through Dodd-Frank.

Regarding renewables, producers are hedging their bets on production with synthetic power purchase agreements to ensure profitability despite receiving government subsidies. All this to finance energy that cannot be produced when it’s not windy or sunny outside.

As with the financial sector, renewables have had a boom led by government intervention and hedging that may ultimately bust as markets can’t efficiently work. This would not only threaten the reliability and price of electricity, but it would also come at the expense of taxpayers. Further, the IEA’s assertion to subsidize renewables to keep them cost-competitive makes the strongest possible statement against subsidizing them.

​It’s time for Texas to take a closer look at the effect of increasing renewable generation and steer the competitive electricity market away from growing subsidies for unreliable energy sources. Once Texas, the nation’s leading energy producer, starts to move the dial, other states and the federal government should follow to allow free markets to work instead of contributing to a boom and bust cycle.