MGA’s Alex Brill on CNBC’s Squawk Box

“The trade news is a negative at the moment. Going forward I don’t think this is the way to grow the economy by slapping tariffs on the way that we’ve seen. Whether this is strategic or not is yet to be determined. Whether there will be some grand deal that’s going to be worked. But this is clearly something that should be concerning to employers. Not just those guys who are directly on the list today, but really who is safe? Some industries might be. Maybe it’s the hospitals, some really domestic type industries that don’t care so much about what is happening in our trade patterns. But I think a lot of folks are rightfully concerned about a new uncertainty in public policy.”

Cost of Opioid Crisis to Average Rhode Islander is $2.8K — 6th Highest in U.S.

“”Opioid abuse is an epidemic in the United States, claiming more than 42,000 lives in 2016 alone (CDC 2017c). In addition to its devastating impact on families and communities, the opioid epidemic is costing the US economy tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions, of dollars annually. The types of costs attributable to opioid abuse – health care costs, criminal justice costs, and lost productivity, for example – are fairly well understood, as is the economic impact of the crisis at the national level,”writes the report which was authored by Alex Brill of the American Enterprise Institute and Scott Ganz of Georgia Institute of Technology.”

MGA’s Alex Brill on CNBC’s Squawk Box

“There is a real wide variation when we think about how this epidemic has affected different parts of the country…. What we tried to do is allocate these costs by state and even by county. And what we find in that result is in a per capita basis, places like District of Columbia, New Hampshire, Connecticut, these are really leading states in these non-mortality related costs. When we think about total costs, meaning adding in the cost of lost life, West Virginia just shoots to the top of the list.”

Report: Boone County Leads US in Per-Capita Opioid-Related Costs

“It’s a staggering cost for a county with 23,645 people in rural Southern West Virginia, a region also struggling with the loss of coal jobs. Boone County’s opioid-related economic cost comes out to $8,734 per person, the AEI study found.”

MGA’s Alex Brill on CNBC’s Squawk Box

While discussing the recent job report and unemployment rate, Alex Brill said “it’s a phenomenal number in terms in job creation. Unemployment rate another phenomenal number. Our unemployment rate is basically stuck at 4.1. Last time it was five months in a row was back to 2012 when it was double the rate it is today. So we are seeing an economy near full employment with numbers that are really surprising this late in the cycle.”

Economist Warns Against Undoing Corporate Rate Cut

“[Alex] Brill noted that other developed countries have already begun to reduce, or have proposed reducing, their corporate rates in response to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (P.L. 115-97), which has in turn prompted some concerns of a “race to the bottom” of countries competing with each other by shrinking their corporate tax revenue base. If the United States reverted to a 35 percent corporate rate or even just partially undid the rate cut, it could put itself at an even greater competitive disadvantage than it was in before the TCJA’s passage, Brill said.”

Opioid Epidemic Costs WV $8.8 Billion Annually, Study Says

“What’s, unfortunately, unique in West Virginia, it’s not so much the rates of addiction, it’s the rates of death,” said Alex Brill, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “What’s most concerning is the high rate of opioid-related deaths.”

MGA’s Alex Brill on CNBC’s Squawk Box

“Those with a college degree or more have been enjoying a relatively tight labor market for a long time with unemployment rates near 2%. But it’s those with high school or less than high school degrees that had very high unemployment rates that now have the lowest unemployment rates they have ever seen around 5%. So things are pretty good across the spectrum both geographically and by the education dynamic.”

MGA’s Alex Brill on CNBC’s Squawk Box

“Tax returns aren’t due for about 15 months until April 2019 and in that time IRS is going to put out guidance that is necessary. Particularly for this pass through provision which undoubtedly will involve some complications. But generally speaking, I think [with this tax reform] we are not aware of any loopholes or true drafting errors yet. We will see in the next weeks and months if anything opens up.”

Alex Brill on Bloomberg’s ‘Bloomberg Daybreak: Australia’

“I think it is a historic moment and a fundamental change in the tax system in the United States primarily for one provision in particular – the change in the corporate tax rate from 35% down to 21%. Overall there’s probably close to 100 provisions, there is 500 pages to this bill. So there are lots of changes. I don’t love every single one of them and I am concerned about the deficit impact this bill will have. But I do think it’s going to drive a lot of investment into the United States. It’s going to make a lot of US firms more competitive globally.”