Team Trump suggests its hard not to give tax cuts to the wealthy

[Judi Lynn]

10/19/17 08:40 AM
By Steve Benen

Republican policymakers are confronting all kinds of challenges while trying to advance some kind of tax reform package, and near the top is a political problem: Americans don’t want to see the wealthy get another giant tax break, and that appears to be the centerpiece of the GOP plan.

For the most part, Donald Trump and his allies have largely dealt with this dilemma by lying – the president has repeatedly said working-class Americans would be the main beneficiaries, which is absurdly untrue – but Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin made a very different case to Politico this week. As Mnuchin sees it, Republicans are giving the rich a big tax cut, but only because it’s too darn difficult not to.

Mnuchin also changed course somewhat in his defense of the GOP’s tax blueprint, conceding it would slash taxes on the wealthy but that doing so was unavoidable because rich people already pay so much in tax.

“The top 20 percent of the people pay 95 percent of the taxes. The top 10 percent of the people pay 81 percent of the taxes,” he said. “So when you’re cutting taxes across the board, it’s very hard not to give tax cuts to the wealthy with tax cuts to the middle class. The math, given how much you are collecting, is just hard to do.”

More:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/team-trump-suggests-its-hard-not-give-tax-cuts-the-wealthy

[mikeysnot]

1. Income taxes

they always leave that out of the catch phrases. Try to make it seem that all taxes are the same...

[Rhiannon12866]

2. Of course he doesn't tell the truth, he says whatever his base wants to hear

And if it suits his purpose, he'll say the opposite thing tomorrow. His only agenda is what will benefit him, but 30% has yet to realize it...