What did Donald Trump do today?
He refused to guarantee that his tax plan--hyped for years now as lowering taxes on the middle class--would lower taxes on the middle class.
Pressed for details today on whether Trump's sketch of a tax plan would mean middle-income families would see lower taxes, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin would only say that "The details of taxes are very complicated." Given a specific scenario--a family of four earning $60,000--Mnuchin refused even to promise that their taxes would not go up.
For the wealthiest Americans, however, the picture is much clearer. The one-page document outlining Trump's agenda has few specifics, but there is no doubt whatsoever that it will massively reduce taxes for corporations and very wealthy individuals--in particular businesses structured the way the Trump Organization is. Assuming he pays any taxes at all at the moment, Donald Trump's personal taxes would absolutely go down under the Trump tax plan.
Trump promised during the campaign that he wanted his own taxes to go up and that he would "massively cut taxes for the middle class, the forgotten people."
For the wealthiest Americans, however, the picture is much clearer. The one-page document outlining Trump's agenda has few specifics, but there is no doubt whatsoever that it will massively reduce taxes for corporations and very wealthy individuals--in particular businesses structured the way the Trump Organization is. Assuming he pays any taxes at all at the moment, Donald Trump's personal taxes would absolutely go down under the Trump tax plan.
Trump promised during the campaign that he wanted his own taxes to go up and that he would "massively cut taxes for the middle class, the forgotten people."
So what?
- Some middle-class voters may have believed Trump when he said he wanted to lower their taxes and raise his own, rather than the opposite.
- It's bad to break campaign promises.
- Major policy documents produced in haste are usually not very coherent.