So I just saw this story about The Donald and his pivot toward the general election. In it, he’s now saying he isn’t “a huge of that,” that being his own plan to deeply cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
But that was the old Trump. Pressed by CNBC on Thursday as to how he could simultaneously brand himself as a populist who will take on wealthy elites while proposing sweeping tax cuts for billionaires, Trump backed away from his plan…
“I am not necessarily a huge fan of that,” he said. “I am so much more into the middle class who have just been absolutely forgotten in our country.”
Okay. Fine. He’s running a general election campaign now, so we’re shaking the Etch-A-Sketch, I suppose. But this next quote is really the thing that I found striking:
“You know, when you put out a tax plan, you are going to start negotiating,” he said. “You don’t say, ‘OK, this is our tax plan, lots of luck, folks.’ There will be negotiation back and forth. And I can see that going up, to be honest with you.”
If I’m reading this correctly, I think he's saying he needs to negotiate with someone to get the tax plan he really wants, which would be one that’s better for the middle class. Now, whom, I ask rhetorically, would be the someone President Trump would need to negotiate with in order to make his tax plan more friendly to the 99%? Would a Republican controlled House and Senate negotiate with The Donald to mitigate tax cuts for the rich while expanding them for the rest of us? That hasn’t really been their modus operandi lately, or ever, as far as I can remember. Trying not to drastically cut taxes for rich people has generally fallen to the Democrats. And by generally I mean solely for as long as I can recall.
As you probably know (though perhaps The Donald doesn’t), currently the Republicans are in the majority of both chambers of Congress. There’s little reason to believe this negotiation Trump is depending on would even be necessary if the Republicans held their majority. Ergo to even get a tax plan Trump would like, he needs voters to turn out in droves for Democrats this fall.