Trump calls for tax cuts but offers few specifics
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — President Trump on Wednesday pitched a sweeping tax overhaul that he said would unleash the U.S. economy and growth to help ordinary people, promising that a vague recipe of large corporate tax cuts and individual tax reductions would boost the middle class.
Wrapping his message in the populist rhetoric that powered his presidential campaign, Trump called for quick action from Congress on the ambitious tax plan he has promised for months, but he offered few specifics beyond a goal of a 15 percent corporate tax rate, down from 35 percent. The politically difficult legislation has yet to be drafted despite months of private negotiations between members of his administration and Republicans on Capitol Hill.
“It’s time to give the American workers the pay raise that they have been looking for for many, many years,” he said.
It will be up to lawmakers in Congress to hash out the particulars of a complex and risky tax bill, administration officials say.
Still, Trump made plain the broad outlines of his vision for overhauling the tax code: a combination of deep cuts for businesses large and small as well as investors and the wealthiest, along with reductions for middle-class people, only partially paid for by eliminating some deductions and boosting economic growth.
Democrats seized on the disconnect between Trump’s tax-cutting message and the large reductions for businesses and high earners that he has championed, vowing to fight what they called a gift to the rich cloaked in populist language.
“If the president wants to use populism to sell his tax plan, he ought to consider actually putting his money where his mouth is and putting forward a plan that puts the middle class, not the top 1 percent, first,” Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said in a conference call organized by progressive groups planning an intensive campaign to oppose Trump’s tax-cutting initiative.