By a narrow 216-212 margin, the House moved the tax-cut football to another first down on Thursday. To actually cross t🍒he goal line, Republicans had best 🐬keep President Trump’s priorities in mind.
The president has an excellent feel for public opinion (in particular for his voters) and a nose for what just won’t♔ fly.
One example of that was Trump’s warning not to mess with 401(k)🧜 retirement-savings accounts, when he learned GOP tax-writers were looking to switch people from 401(k)s (where you don’t pay taxes until you withdraw your money) to🅺 Roth accounts (where you pay all𒁏 the taxes up-front).
The idea was to get more cash for Uncle Sam now, allowing for more tax cuts on other fronts. But the president saw that this would give Democrats a chance to claim the💜 overall plan was a blow to the middle class.
Similarly, you can thank Trump for the fact that Republicans are talking about a fourth tax bracket, perhaps on incomes over $1ﷺ million 𒐪a year: The president again has his eye on how it’ll all look to regular Americans.
Above all, Trump has pushed for a serious cut in the corporate-tax rate, to at most 20 percent. That’s vital to bringing America in line with the💦 global competition. Nearly every other advanced natio𝄹n has a much lower rate; even France is looking to come way down.
Yet the president and his team have also been making sure to take the case for a corporate cuౠt to his voters, by showing how lowering these t💜axes puts money in workers’ pockets and creates jobs.
Democrats are furiously denying this. Yet the Obama administration, back when it was pushing tax reform in 2012, said that cutting the corporate rate “creates goodꦿ jobs with good wages for the middle-class folks who work at those businesses.” Sen. Chuck Schumer argued much the same when he co-sponsored a corporate-rate cut in 2015.
With the minority party so despꦦerate to kill the GOP plan, Republican leaders would be fools to ignore Trump’s guidance on what the public will buy.