DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Trump's Pre-Election Tax-Cut Promise Leaves GOP Leaders Baffled

Lol, Congress isn’t even session, and yet this guy is pulling tax plans out of his ass

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump has promised a new middle-income tax cut plan to land days before the midterm election, a move aimed at boosting his party’s chances of holding its Congressional majorities -- yet Republican tax policy-makers know nothing about it.

Party leaders were caught off-guard by Trump’s comments, made Saturday after a rally in Nevada, that “we’re looking at a major tax cut for middle income people,” and that House Republicans, including Speaker Paul Ryan, are working on a possible bill.

Trump’s surprise announcement came as the fight to control Congress intensifies in the final weeks before the mid-term election. Republicans had hoped the landmark tax overhaul last year would help carry them to victory in the midterms. But the policies -- widely viewed as having mainly helped corporations and the wealthy -- are turning out to be less popular than they thought. Many forecasters believe Democrats are likely to take the House in November.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who played a key role in crafting Trump’s 2017 tax overhaul, could offer no further details on Sunday beyond echoing his boss in an interview.

White-House Driven?

A Republican tax lobbyist with ties to GOP leadership said he’s unaware of any effort in Congress to address tax policy before the midterm elections. The lobbyist, who asked not to be identified to discuss internal matters, said he met with White House officials recently, and came away believing that no additional effort at tax legislation was imminent.

Trump on Saturday offered no details on the proposal. The White House did not respond to repeated requests to explain the details of the plan the president was referencing.

Even if policy makers hastily pulled something together at the White House’s insistence, lawmakers are out until after the election. After that, in the lame-duck session, it would be tough to take up a bill when the House may have flipped to Democratic control for the new Congress. At the same time, the Senate has already been reluctant to address a tax bill already passed by the House in September.

“We’re looking at a major tax cut for middle-income people,” the president told reporters on Saturday after a rally in Elko, Nevada -- the final leg of a three-state swing through the West to bolster support for Republican House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates. “Not for business at all; for middle-income people.”

Deficit Blowout

The 2017 overhaul has been criticized for mainly benefiting the wealthy and corporations and also for increasing the federal budget deficit. It’s possible that a second round of tax cuts could face resistance from some Republicans concerned about increasing the deficit even further.

No Democrats supported last year’s tax bill, and they’ve been critical of the prospect of a second round of tax cuts since they were first discussed by Republicans. Unless offset by spending reductions, any new tax cut would further add to the deficit, which reached $779 billion, a six-year high, in Trump’s first full year in office.

Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, said Sunday that the government needs to make “tough choices so that we can balance our books.”

Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” how Republicans would pay for the tax cut that Trump is apparently proposing, Tillis, reverting to a talking point used by many Republicans about the 2017 tax bill, said it has to pay for itself through faster growth.

Pressed by NBC correspondent Chuck Todd that the current tax cut isn’t paying for itself, Tillis said “there is a way to rationalize that this tax cut will pay for itself through sustained economic growth.”

The International Monetary Fund this month downgraded its forecast for U.S. growth in 2019 to 2.5 percent, down 0.2 percentage point from July and down from 2.9 percent this year, citing Trump’s tariff war with China and other countries.

The White House has regularly suggested the U.S. economy can grow at 3 percent or more based on its policies. After quarterly GDP was reported at 4.1 percent for April-June, Trump termed that level of growth “very, very sustainable.” Third-quarter GDP figures are due on Oct. 26 and forecast an an annualized 3.3 percent.

5-Percent Solution

Faced with the rising deficit, Trump this week told his Cabinet that each federal agency needed to trim its budget by 5 percent.

For many Republicans, though, the book-balancing choices skew more to cutting social programs than dialing back spending in general, or reconsidering tax rates.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has blamed rising budget deficits on a failure to constrain spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Entitlement spending is “the real driver of the debt by any objective standard,” McConnell said in an interview with Bloomberg on Oct. 16.

Brady and Ryan

Trump said on Saturday that Ryan and Representative Kevin Brady, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, were working on the possible legislation.

He added that the plan could be announced as soon as Nov. 1, days before the Nov. 6 elections that will decide the control of Congress. Mnuchin said, “We hope to have something soon.”

“There is continued interest in building on the success of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and constantly improving the tax code for hardworking families and America’s small businesses,” said Rob Damschen, a spokesman for Brady. He referred any further questions on Trump’s remark to the White House.

The Republican-led House passed legislation in September that would make permanent the 2017 tax cuts for individuals and pass-through businesses which otherwise would expire at the end of 2025. That measure is unlikely to be taken up in the Senate anytime soon, though, as party leaders are hesitant to push a bill they don’t expect could garner the 60 votes needed to pass.

Trump’s pitch for middle-class tax relief comes as a survey commissioned by the Republican National Committee showed that voters overwhelmingly believe the 2017 overhaul helped the wealthy instead of average Americans.

By 61 percent to 30 percent respondents said the law benefits “large corporations and rich Americans” over “middle-class families,” according to the survey, which was completed on Sept. 2 by the GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies and obtained by Bloomberg News.

Trump isn’t the only politician thinking about taxes. Senator Kamala Harris, a California Democrat seen as a possible 2020 presidential candidate, has proposed repealing the 2017 tax law and replacing it with a tax credit or direct payment to middle-class and poor individuals and families.

Middle class families deserve to know that one unexpected cost won’t lead to a financial emergency. The LIFT the Middle Class Act that I introduced would help address the rising costs of housing, tuition, childcare, and more.

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 19, 2018

--With assistance from Saleha Mohsin.

He means upper middle class...1/2 of the country does not pay income taxes..the lower middle class is in that bracket....it was why Barry cut the fica tax force while...it was the only way to give people that dont pay income taxes a tax cut...all the while draining funds from SS...brilliant

Any actual comments on how trump plans on having a tax plan proposed before Election Day when Congress is not only out of session, but he GOP wasnt even aware of this plan to begin with?

Of our total debt, somewhere around 30% of it (almost $6 trillion) is owed to other government agencies, like Social Security.

If it weren't for that, we might not have as many problems with trying to sustain Social Security. (and BOTH Parties have been to blame for this)

Any actual comments on how trump plans on having a tax plan proposed before Election Day when Congress is not only out of session, but he GOP wasnt even aware of this plan to begin with?

I have an actual comment.

Just like certain Democrats announced a hair brained scheme to give everybody 6 grand, Trump is offering more tax cuts.

There is an election coming up in a couple of weeks.

Thought you would have figured that out for yourself.

Well, seeing as something like that has actually happened before, while you might not like the policy, atleast we’ve seen it.

Your boy just announced a proposal that congress is somehow gonna handle straight up out of his ass.

So is he actually gonna do it, or are you admitting it’s just a con to get people to vote gop?

Do tax plans normally take about 2 weeks to put together?

My boy has 2 things going for him in this case.

1- When he pushes for something he usually gets it.

2- He has already proven himself by getting us that first tax cut. A second one is not as far fetched as the Dems scheme.

Well he pushed for a wall and a repeal of the ACA, didn’t get it.

Tried to get nato to pay more even though they just reaffirmed the commitment, so he didn’t get that either.

Tried to get mueller fired. Didn’t happen. Tried to get Sessions fired. Didn’t happen.

And the tax cut? Any republican president was gonna get their tax cut with an gop controlled congress.

Let me know if trump gets his tax cut with a dem controlled house.

This is true, in large part because the bottom 50% of the country holds less than 15% of the wealth in the country.

And I could fill this whole page with things he did get, but I won't.

They need to be read his book.....stake the "goal" way out front so that you can negotiate to your real goal....trump did get parts of the ACA peeled back and he did get funding for some of the wall....how sure are they that these were not his real goals from the outset.

And Mexico is paying for the wall.

1) This is laughably untrue

2) His nonsensical rambling about tax cuts before the election is an actual impossibility. Congress isn’t in session.

Trump's mystery tax cut puzzles Washington

The president has spoken twice about a tax plan no one else seems to know anything about. 'I guess I’ll hear about it when I get to work on Monday,' one official said.

By NANCY COOK and BEN WHITE 10/22/2018 05:36 PM EDT


Call it the mystery middle class tax cut.

In recent days President Donald Trump has twice promised a new “major tax cut” ahead of the November midterm elections, mystifying White House officials, congressional leaders, and tax wonks around town who mostly have no idea what he’s talking about.

The pledge — which Trump repeated Monday afternoon — came as news to House and Senate lawmakers, who’ve already returned to their home states to campaign for the elections and have no plans to consider new legislation before then.

White House officials spent the day trying to decode what Trump meant because no one knew the substance of any such tax cut, or had seen any policy proposal related to it. Aides were left wondering what Trump had read in newspaper clippings, or seen on Twitter, to inspire this grand promise from his rally podium.

One senior administration official on Sunday night had not even heard about the president’s tax cut remark on Saturday in Nevada and said they had no idea what he was talking about. “I guess I’ll hear about it when I get to work on Monday,” the official said.

Trump said that House Speaker Paul Ryan was involved in crafting the plan. But Ryan’s office shed no light, referring questions back to the White House.

Trump first floated the idea on Saturday, saying that his administration is “studying very deeply right now round the clock a major tax cut for middle income people.” He upped the ante before leaving for a campaign trip to Texas on Monday, telling reporters at the White House that the administration plans to produce a “resolution” calling for a 10 percent tax cut for middle income earners. It was not clear what he meant by resolution. There are no current plans in Congress for any kind of large new tax cut for the middle class.

The GOP is already scrambling to avoid criticism for the ballooning debt and deficit under Trump’s watch. The president’s own Treasury Department reported last week that the deficit hit $779 billion in the 2018 fiscal year, the highest level since 2012, following the GOP tax cut bill and a massive spending increase in Congress. Jason Furman, who served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama suggested a 10 percent middle class tax cut would cost roughly $2 trillion over ten years.

"This is the height of cynicism," Greg Valliere, chief global strategist for Horizon Investments, said of Trump’s tax cut talk. "Number one, I think even Republicans would be gun shy about adding this much more to the deficit. And the public actually seems pretty indifferent to tax cuts. This doesn't pass the smell test or the laugh test."

One potential clue to Trump’s thinking: Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) released a tax proposal aimed at the middle class late last week. Some Republicans close to the White House speculated that Trump is trying to one-up his potential 2020 presidential rival.

Regardless of the origin of the president’s comments, they nonetheless set off a scramble in official Washington to de-code his exact meaning.

One senior administration official stressed that the president was left hungry for more even after his White House pushed tax reform legislation through Congress for the first time since 1986. “He’s wanted to do more,” the official added. “But on those specifics, you may have to wait a bit because they have to go through Congress.”

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady already unveiled a tax reform 2.0 bill earlier this fall, which now must wait for consideration from the Senate. Brady’s bill contains many of the tweaks and fixes to the individual side of the tax code, so much so that one Republican congressional staffer said: “What else can we really do?” when asked for reaction to Trump’s comments.

Tax wonks, too, were left to speculate about the policy machinations. Some suspect Trump was referring to a proposal from the Treasury Department to index capital gains to inflation, a move the department could do unilaterally.

“We think Mr. Trump could have been hinting that the administration may propose indexing capital gains for inflation,” Brian Gardner, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods wrote in a note to clients on Monday. “While indexing capital gains for inflation might not meet many people's definition of a ‘middle class tax cut,’ it is an idea that National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow supports and has pushed for many years and which the administration floated during the summer.

Or Trump could have been referring to a proposal out of his Department of Labor that would expand access to 401(k)’s for people who work for small businesses, said Stephen Moore, an informal economic adviser to the Trump campaign and distinguished visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation who, despite his own deep relationships in the White House, was also left wondering about Trump’s ‘major tax cut’ rhetoric.

The specifics may not matter, though, in the days before an election — especially as the media echoes his message, often uncritically.

“Trump says ‘major tax cut’ on the way for the middle class” read one headline on Fox News business on Oct. 22. “Trump: Working on tax cut for middle class,” an MSNBC chyron declared during his remarks Monday. Making headlines like those may have been Trump’s clearest plan all along.

And for Republicans making the final sprint to the midterms, Trump talking about tax cuts – even fanciful ones with no chance of happening – is better than Trump talking about much of anything else.

“It’s not a serious proposal. It wasn’t kicked around a whole lot, he just tossed it out there,” said one conservative lobbyist with close ties to GOP leaders on the Hill. “Nobody is taking it seriously, but we’d rather have him talking about tax cuts than some of the crazy stuff he usually talks about.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/22/trump-new-tax-cut-midterms-925383


Distract, lie to and confuse the electorate... Trump's real plan.

I'd be happy with a tax cut, personally.

I would be even happier to get two tax cuts.

That's why Trump is lying about having one in two weeks.

AND That's why Trump is lying about having one in two weeks.

“I would be even happiest to hear that Trump stopped a mugging en route to a Paula Abdul concertt! Please tell me a morsel that the effete sex pervert is good?!”

I didn't har about that. Were you there with your Mom?

The guy who can’t juggle a job and learning how to use Google didn’t “har about that”.

I wouldn’t. For what? To watch services continue to be underfunded?

And they claim only liberals try to buy votes.

Tsk tsk be careful ...that’s what the GOP call chilling out with the entitlements. Like SS and such we’ve all paid into that they are using like a credit card to wage war.

Trump wants to give a tax cut then take SS, Medicare, and Medicaid away to justify it.

Trump doesn’t understand how any of those things function, let alone how Congress works. He’s mainly led by the nose.

Very possible a posturing move.

Rambling incoherently about Congress passing a non-existent tax cut while they’re in recess is a “posturing move” and definitely not an elderly man with dementia babbling his stream of consciousness out loud.

Speaking of which, today marked the seventh time that Trump held a ceremony for a bill signing and left without signing it, having to be shuffled back into the room like a nursing home patient who forgot to take their medication.

Seventh time.

He mistook the bill for a non-disclosure agreement.

There was one a month or so ago where Wilbur Ross didn’t want Trump to sign a finance related E.O. do he just pulled it from Trump’s desk, and he forgot about it completely.