Author Topic: Donald Trump Won’t Alter Tax Plan, Spokeswoman Says as Confusion Reigns  (Read 613 times)

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Offline sinkspur

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/us/politics/donald-trump-wont-alter-tax-plan-spokeswoman-says-as-confusion-reigns.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=nytpolitics&smtyp=cur&_r=1

Donald Trump Won’t Alter Tax Plan, Spokeswoman Says as Confusion Reigns

By JACKIE CALMESMAY 12, 2016

WASHINGTON — After days of confusion over Donald J. Trump’s hints that he would change his tax plan to reduce its budget-busting cost and make it less generous to the rich, his spokeswoman on Thursday sought to clear things up: He plans no changes, Hope Hicks said, and advisers who say otherwise do not speak for him.

One of those advisers, Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation, had his own response: “I’m a little bummed out if his spokeswoman says they’re not going to make any changes to the plan.”

Mr. Trump set off the speculation a week ago, shortly after becoming the presumptive Republican nominee for president, when he told the business cable network CNBC that his months-old tax plan was just a starting point for a final deal. As for his plan’s tilt toward the rich and corporations, Mr. Trump said, “I am not necessarily a huge fan of that,” adding, “I am so much more into the middle class, who have just been absolutely forgotten in our country.”

Since then, he has vacillated on his intentions — repeatedly saying wealthy individuals and businesses would pay more taxes if he were president, and then clarifying that he means the richest taxpayers would pay more than under his original tax-cuts plan, but less than under current law.

Compounding the confusion, Politico reported on Wednesday that two informal advisers — Larry Kudlow, a CNBC host, and Mr. Moore, an economic commentator — said they were helping Mr. Trump at his request and had proposed changes to slash the plan’s cost from $10 trillion in its first decade to $3.8 trillion. They attributed the estimate to the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation.

Kyle E. Pomerleau, the Tax Foundation’s director of federal projects, confirmed the estimate. But he said Mr. Kudlow and Mr. Moore in their public comments “left out a lot of details about how Trump’s plan could get from the $10 trillion to the $3.8 trillion” — details that conflict with Mr. Trump’s professed favoritism toward the middle class.

Describing the tentative revisions of the plan provided to Tax Foundation analysts, Mr. Pomerleau said Mr. Trump’s original three tax brackets for individuals — with marginal tax rates of 10, 20 and 25 percent — would be raised to 15, 25 and 28 percent. The current tax code has seven brackets ranging from 10 to 39.6 percent.

Another change would shrink the standard deduction that benefits most taxpayers — to a proposed $10,000 for an individual filer from Mr. Trump’s original $25,000 deduction, which would have been nearly four times as generous as current law.

“Once you raise those marginal rates and drastically shrink the standard deduction, the benefits to the middle class basically go away,” Mr. Pomerleau said. “You’re only giving them to the top. So it’s unlikely that he would want to do that. It wouldn’t match up with the rhetoric he’s been using.”

Ms. Hicks succinctly dismissed any suggested discrepancy in an email: “There are no changes being made to the plan.”

That plan would give two-thirds of its tax cuts to the richest 20 percent of taxpayers, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

As for Mr. Kudlow and Mr. Moore, Ms. Hicks wrote, “They do not speak for Mr. Trump or the campaign.”

In an interview, Mr. Moore said he and Mr. Kudlow met with Mr. Trump a few weeks ago at his Trump Tower office to talk about Mr. Trump’s tax plan, which he had outlined last winter.

“We just were asked to look at the plan and to try to make a few revisions to it so that it would be a little less costly,” Mr. Moore said.

At Mr. Trump’s direction, he said, he and Mr. Kudlow later passed along their proposed tweaks to Sam Clovis, the campaign policy director, who “said he likes a lot of the ideas.”

“One concern that I’ve had as a Trump supporter is that if the number is $10 trillion for the lost revenue, that’s going to be a hard thing to make up with spending cuts,” Mr. Moore said. Referring to the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, he added, “Hillary has already starting attacking him on it.”
Roy Moore's "spiritual warfare" is driving past a junior high without stopping.

Offline sinkspur

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What an effing mess the Trump campaign is!

First, Trump comes out last Sunday and confuses the hell out of everybody with higher taxes on the rich, but not as high as now, but higher than what he first said.  Who the hell knew what it was?

Then he decides to turn his tax plan over to two TV personalities--Stephen Moore and Larry Kudlow--and even they don't like his plan and let it be known.

Trump rejects the advice of his TV personalities and says a $10 trillion dollar hole is just fine and reemphasizes his Democrat stance that no entitlements will be touched.

Quote
That plan would give two-thirds of its tax cuts to the richest 20 percent of taxpayers, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

Can't we see the "tax cuts to the rich" ads all over the air in September?

Dopeyness abounds.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2016, 01:38:18 pm by sinkspur »
Roy Moore's "spiritual warfare" is driving past a junior high without stopping.

Offline kjam22

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What an effing mess the Trump campaign is!

First, Trump comes out last Sunday and confuses the hell out of everybody with higher taxes on the rich, but not as high as now, but higher than what he first said.  Who the hell knew what it was?

Then he decides to turn his tax plan over to two TV personalities--Stephen Moore and Larry Kudlow--and even they don't like his plan and let it be known.

Trump rejects the advice of his TV personalities and says a $10 trillion dollar hole is just fine and reemphasizes his Democrat stance that no entitlements will be touched.

Dopeyness abounds.
   Yep, once it becomes he and Hitlery and the media is ready to take him out.... all of the flip flopping will become an issue.   He will lose the ability to say contrasting things and act like it makes sense.
America needs God's forgiveness....... Even if Donald Trump doesn't think he does.

Offline sinkspur

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   Yep, once it becomes he and Hitlery and the media is ready to take him out.... all of the flip flopping will become an issue.   He will lose the ability to say contrasting things and act like it makes sense.

The thing that will kill the Trump campaign is that neither Trump nor any of his staff have thought through ANY of his proposals.

This tax plan is a perfect example.  His NATO proposal, the wall, tariffs, healthcare....you know, the big stuff...are all hollow and Hillary will shoot them full of holes.

Hell, Jim Baker, whom Trump talked to yesterday, went on Capitol Hill and said Trump's NATO proposal would make the world much more dangerous and is simply impractical.

But even if his proposals make no sense, it's full speed ahead for the Trumpkins.
Roy Moore's "spiritual warfare" is driving past a junior high without stopping.

Offline kjam22

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The thing that will kill the Trump campaign is that neither Trump nor any of his staff have thought through ANY of his proposals.

This tax plan is a perfect example.  His NATO proposal, the wall, tariffs, healthcare....you know, the big stuff...are all hollow and Hillary will shoot them full of holes.

Hell, Jim Baker, whom Trump talked to yesterday, went on Capitol Hill and said Trump's NATO proposal would make the world much more dangerous and is simply impractical.

But even if his proposals make no sense, it's full speed ahead for the Trumpkins.

Yep... and at the end of his first term (if elected)..... and we still haven't started on the wall.... the King Trumpy Worshipers will believe whatever excuse he tells them.  No matter how crazy, or how untruthful, or how ignorant an excuse.     And, those of us who have been saying since day one that the wall will not be built..... will still be marginalized.
America needs God's forgiveness....... Even if Donald Trump doesn't think he does.

Offline don-o

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You could see it coming from the get go. Note well how now the MSM is "setting the hook" to reel him in and absolutely gut him.

He was always on their hook, but they played him for their own benefit and agenda.