American Prospect: The Two Biggest Lies in Donald Trump’s Tax Plan

Following is an excerpt from an essay in the American Prospect by ITEP Senior Fellow Matt Gardner:

Despite a full-court charm offensive by the White House, its media surrogates, and big corporations that benefit most from the 2017 Republican Tax Act, the public stubbornly sees the truth: that President Trump’s tax bill was designed for big, profitable corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

Two “big lies” drove the Trump tax cuts—the claims that corporate taxes were especially high, and that the president’s tax overhaul would be geared toward the middle class. The development of the Trump tax plan was the embodiment of the man himself: a moving target, vaguely defined, constantly changing, and sometimes reversing itself abruptly.

In 2015, then–presidential candidate Donald Trump declared “tax reform” a central plank of his campaign platform, making a number of claims that subsequently fell by the wayside. For example, he said his plan would take 75 million Americans off the income tax rolls without adding a dime to federal deficits. Later in his campaign and after taking office, Trump released more iterations of his tax plan, including one on a single, double-spaced page. While details about individuals’ taxes changed over time, his desire to reduce the corporate tax rate to the lowest in the developed world remained constant. Read more

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