Trump's Tax Plan Is a Disaster, Of Course

Donald Trump is desperate to have a legislative victory. His first 100 days have been marked by failure, his only "success" coming thanks to Antonin Scalia dying 14 months ago.

Healthcare reform is uncertain at best, and, even if the Republicans manage to pass something, it will go over like a lead balloon with the public. A pyrrhic victory in the making.

Trump has all but given up on his tall, beautiful border wall, and his signature executive orders around immigration keep getting tossed out by the courts. Last night, his order to restrict federal funding to sanctuary cities was also blocked by a federal judge.

So his next gambit is tax reform. And, naturally, his constellation of proposals is a total disaster.

As I mentioned yesterday, Trump has proposed reducing the corporate tax rate to 15%, which is a terrible idea and would cause the deficit to balloon by trillions of dollars, which naturally would be used to enact devastating austerity policy.

Trump is also fixing to propose "a significant increase in the standard deduction people can claim on their tax returns, potentially putting thousands of dollars each year into the pockets of tens of millions of Americans, according to two people briefed on the plan. ...White House officials think these changes will give Americans and companies more money to spend, expand the economy and create more jobs."

Which Americans? Mostly the already-rich ones, natch.

If you're thinking, "That sounds like some trickle-down economic shit!" well, you're not wrong. Yes, Trump is pursuing yet another iteration of a long-discredited economic theory that rests firmly in the Republican fantasy that tax cuts solve everything.

The kicker, as Alice Ollstein reports at TPM: Trump's Trickle Down Tax Plan Is Already in Trouble in Congress.

Trump will unveil Wednesday a proposal to slash the corporate tax rate from 35 to 15 percent—a change that would balloon the federal deficit by an estimated $2 trillion dollars over a decade. The plan will reportedly include additional cuts to the income tax rate paid by high earners and a tax credit for child care that would mostly benefit the wealthy, at further cost to the federal budget.

While some Republican lawmakers cheerfully echoed to TPM the White House line that the tax cuts will "pay for themselves" by spurring massive economic growth, both official government analyses and conservative economists are much more skeptical.

"There's no pure tax cut that pays for itself," Alan Cole, an economist at the right-leaning Tax Foundation, told the Associated Press.

...Despite assurances of dynamic scoring and record growth, some Republicans are balking at the depth of the proposed tax cuts. Having railed for years against the ever-growing federal deficit, they are mindful of supporting a plan that would push the government far deeper into the red.

It remains to be seen whether it's enough Republicans to stop this horrendous upwards wealth redistribution masquerading as tax reform. Significant public pushback could make a difference (again). So get ready to make some noise.