President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he is planning another round of tax cuts aimed at the middle class and working families, The Washington Examiner reports.
“It will be a very substantial tax cut for middle-income folks who work so hard,” Trump said at a House Republican retreat in Baltimore, Maryland.
Trump and Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, which spurred economic growth by cutting taxes for millions and cutting the corporate tax rate to 15%. At that time, however, both houses of Congress were controlled by Republicans.
With the Democrats now in control of the House, it could end up being very difficult for Trump to get any tax cut plan through Congress.
What are Trump’s chances?
It doesn’t seem likely that Trump will be able to overcome House Democrat objections to more tax cuts. Democrats don’t like to admit that tax cuts work. Their official party line is that we need to raise taxes so we can give more stuff away for “free” to citizens — or even non-citizens, in many cases.
By Democrat logic, every dollar cut from someone’s taxes is a dollar the government won’t be able to spend on “important priorities” like government-run health care, open borders, and abortion on demand. Democrats think they need more of your money to spend, not less.
And if by some fluke tax cuts do work, why would they want to give Trump a way to make the economy stronger before the 2020 election?
Since Democrats hold the majority in the House, they can easily refuse to pass a Trump-led tax cut. It’s pretty much dead-on-arrival.
Republican lethargy
The unlikelihood of Trump’s tax plans ever seeing the light of day may be why Republicans haven’t done much to trumpet “Tax Cuts 2.0.” Really, what’s the point?
But Trump wants the American people to know that he wants to cut their taxes more, even if he can’t actually do it. It’s important when people go to the ballot box that they know Trump stands for lower taxes.
If he can get re-elected in 2020 and Republicans can retake the House, more tax cuts would be back on the table for real. The wave of Republican retirements isn’t going to make a House victory any easier for Republicans to achieve, though.
For now, the economy is going gangbusters no matter what Democrats are trying to make people think about a recession. Let’s just hope that holds until after 2020.