President Donald Trump is going to tour America to promote a tax plan that — like the Republican Party’s numerous infamous Obamacare repeal bills — remains mysterious.
The tax plan that Trump is supposed to tout on Wednesday will lower the top income tax rate for individual Americans to 35 percent, reducing the corporate tax rate to 20 percent and establish a 25 percent tax rate for pass-through businesses, according to Reuters. Although Republicans have insisted that the budgetary impact of the tax cuts will be offset by closing existing loopholes, it is unclear if any specifics will be mentioned in their upcoming plan.
Without some method of compensating for the loss of tax revenue, the nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimated that Trump’s tax plan would reduce the total amount of money coming into the government by approximately $5 trillion over the next decade.
Of course, the plan hammered out by the so-called Big Six — Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, economic adviser Gary Cohn, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) — could become even more problematic from a budgetary standpoint, according to Politico. Trump has insisted that he wants a 15 percent corporate tax rate, despite most Republicans agreeing that would be disastrous for the budget. Given the president’s penchant for defying the wishes of his own party, there is widespread concern among insiders that he will abandon the Big Six plan and call for 15 percent anyway.
“He’s the one guy left in Washington who still wants a 15 percent corporate rate. They could put 20 percent down on paper and he could go out and say 15 percent anyway. He goes to these tax meetings and people just hammer him but he still wants 15 percent,” said one source close to the White House’s tax reform discussions.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We’re presently working to find 1500 new monthly donors to Truthout before the end of the year.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy