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

[Angry Dragon]

1. Here is a fact

when you cut the bottom rate the wealthy also get that tax cut.............PROBLEM SOLVED

[asiliveandbreathe]

2. Their lying Ads are up and running - depicting a young mother

and her family - middle class tax cuts...good...unbelievable we are now going to cut medicare and Medicaid - food and farm and housing - so the rich get their tax cut...this NEEDS to be front and center..the Ad buy is going to saturate the airwaves.....

RESIST RESIST.....

[MosheFeingold]

3. Everyone is just dancing around the Christmas Tree

And not actually doing anything.

Yes, tax cuts do disproportionately help high income people (who are not necessarily "rich" -- think a doctor with a $1,000,000 in student loans) -- because they pay almost all of the taxes.

Of course, they also make the lion's share of the income.

And really, really rich people don't pay income taxes (or at least not like us) because they make money on assets that grow without taxation until sold. In short, they make money on the 1/3 that high income people have to pay.

And, yes, it's kind of unfair for some Americans to pay a lot, while most pay little or nothing.

And there are solutions that would solve all of this, but that none of the Republicans (or entrenched Democrats) would consider. For example:

Consider a flat tax! It's the Republican nirvana. Fair and everyone pays a share.

BUT

Couple it with a consumption tax (i.e., federal sales tax). This will nail actual rich people.

AND couple that with:

An import tax. This will nail businesses that screw Americans.

And perhaps even an export tax.

You get a blend of taxes like this and the Republicans don't have the populist message they have.

It would also work better to achieve parity/progressiveness.