President Donald Trump is in favor of millionaires and billionaires paying more taxes, but he is worried it could cost the Republicans the next election.
In a rare moment of doubt, the president appeared to dither about whether it was wise to hike taxes on the super-rich to help pay for his much-vaunted “big, beautiful” spending bill.
President George H. W. Bush was excoriated after striking a deal with a Democratic Congress to raise taxes after famously saying, “Read my lips; no new taxes” at the 1988 Republican National Convention. The quote was widely blamed for Bush’s loss to Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election.
In a Truth Social post on Friday suggesting he was open to a “TINY” tax rise, Trump raised the specter of Bush’s inauspicious quote.
He wrote that he would “graciously accept” the additional tax burden to help out “lower and middle income workers”, but added that “the Radical Left Democrat Lunatics would go around screaming, “Read my lips,” the fabled Quote by George Bush the Elder that is said to have cost him the Election.”
Trump claimed the tax vow was not the reason Bush lost his re-election attempt, blaming third candidate Ross Perot, who took 19 percent of the vote, splitting the GOP electorate. Clinton won with a resounding 43 percent over Bush’s 37 percent.
“In any event,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, “Republicans should probably not do it, but I’m OK if they do!!!”
The president reportedly told Speaker Mike Johnson in a phone call on Wednesday that the top earners’ tax rate should increase from 37 percent to 39.6 percent for people making over $2.5 million a year, and $5 million for married couples.
That would effectively reverse a tax cut that Trump ushered into law during his first administration in 2017 when he rolled back the top rate of tax from 39.6 percent to 37 percent.
Currently, the top tax rate kicks in for anyone earning over $626,350, but Trump is floating the idea of lifting that to $2.5 million
A White House official told Axios: “This is to pay for working-and middle-class tax cuts that were promised, and protect Medicaid.”
Apart from Trump’s reservations, the proposal is likely to meet resistance on the Hill, with many Republicans traditionally opposed to any tax increases. One lawmaker who is “not excited” about the idea is GOP Senate Finance Chair Michael Crapo, but he added: “There are a number of people in both the House and Senate who are.”
Trump has accepted that any tax hike could be “very disruptive”, and conservatives have lobbied strongly against the plan.
Last month, he was still on the fence, telling Time magazine he liked the concept, “but I don’t want it to be used against me politically, because I’ve seen people lose elections for less, especially with the fake news.”
But if the president goes all in, Republicans in Congress may yet fall in line if it helps pay for some of the additional spending in Johnson’s budget bill, which is still short of votes.
The post Dithering Trump Attacks His Own Tax Hike Plan for Millionaires appeared first on The Daily Beast.
