Financial Expert Steve Laffey for President in 2024 Has Real Solutions to America’s Problems

FROM OUR PRINTED JUNE 2023 EDITION;

by Beth Guidry Hoffman
Boston Broadside
Contributing Writer

Steve Laffey has been talking about running for president since 2011 when he produced the documentary “Fixing America,” where he had answers to the country’s economic challenges back then. If you watch the film now, you might think it was made last week. (Film Trailer: tinyurl.com/5dktfdma)

Laffey predicted America’s looming financial crisis. The film, on which my husband Jeff Hoffman was the cinematographer, working with Laffey conveys the sentiment of everyday Americans over our government’s failure to provide solutions. “Once we pass $20 trillion of borrowed money, we can’t go back,” he said. “So where are we now? We passed $20 trillion.” To put in perspective this amount of debt, don’t miss his short video “How Much is a Trillion?” (https://tinyurl.com/mpr5t8k)

Interviewed on ABC’s “GMA3: What You Need to Know,” Laffey states why he’s running for president — “We have a financial crisis staring us right in the face. We need someone who is a financial expert now. My party overspent by $8 trillion in four years.” The overspending, much of it tainted with corruption (he cites $800 billion of the PPP program) “created the inflation through the Fed,” he said. “I may be the only person who understands this.” And when you have Republican candidates saying we won’t touch Social Security, “that’s fiscally… immoral. We have taken so much money from the kids.” Laffey sounds the alarm saying “we have to get the message out … so we can fix this now.” (GMA3 Feb. 6, 2023.)

I recently interviewed Steve for this article and found him to be highly intelligent and articulate with abundant common sense. Elon Musk recently said—in one of Tucker Carlson’s last major interviews—“this country needs a normal person running for president.” Steve Laffey sounds like that normal person.

As mayor of Cranston, R.I. (2003 – 2007), Laffey engineered the fastest financial turnaround of any city. Cranston was 37 days from declaring bankruptcy. During Laffey’s years as mayor, their bond rating went up eight notches. Four years later Cranston was rated one of the best cities to live in America.

Prior to Cranston, Laffey helped run Morgan Keenan, a Tennessee brokerage firm worth $500 million. Adjusted for inflation that would be $1 billion today. He rose to president and COO at 38, building assets and overseeing the sale of the firm in 2001. “I have a God-given ability to put the right people in the right place at the right time.” This is what Laffey did at Morgan Keenan with the head of investment banking and who he put in charge of trading. He did this also in Cranston, with the director of administration as well as the Department of Research.

“The president is responsible for the Fed,” Laffey said. “I would keep inflation at zero by letting the money supply grow generally at 2%.” Those at the Fed now, he believes, are afraid of deflation. “But the last time we had deflation was 1889. Everyone should want a little deflation,” Laffey said. “I am the only candidate running for president who is calling for the resignation of all the members of the Federal Reserve Board. I have called for the resignation of Janet Yellen. These people have hurt our economy. They have created a vicious cycle, which rewards only the elite wealthy and continues to destroy the middle class.” Other candidates won’t say this, Laffey said. “Governor Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy will not say this because they are part of the elite cycle of electing presidents.”

On Social Security Laffey says, “there is a way to fix, modernize, and strengthen Social Security, so that our children can actually get it.” As a businessman Laffey knows how to take the best practices from experts. “I’m not ashamed to say I didn’t create [the plan]. Larry Kotlikoff (professor of economics at Boston University) is the world-renowned leader on Social Security. It’s his plan. It takes $61 trillion of unfunded liability to zero.”

Large corporations and the elite are benefiting from the 60,000 pages of our current tax code with their deductions. Laffey’s plan for a new tax system is to make the tax code fair and simple using Herman Cain’s “9•9•9″ Plan. “You know, Steve,” Herman Cain said to Laffey in 2013, “it’s really half a fair tax, and half a flat tax.”

On education Laffey says the federal government doesn’t care enough about your children. He says the public school system “is broken beyond repair and needs to be replaced with a system of choice for parents.” Early on, Laffey’s six kids were schooled in various private, Catholic and public schools. He took over their home schooling from his wife Kelly when she needed to manage the health of their daughter with stage 4 cancer. Although there are fees for some programs, Laffey said, homeschooling is basically free. “On the margin you should be getting a lot more for a lot less,” regarding the money spent per student in the U.S.  ♦

For more in-depth answers to issues go to: https://www.stevelaffey.com/

Visit Steve on substack at: https://substack.com/@stevelaffey

For more on the film: https://www.fixingamericamovie.com/