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.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.