Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says in a new interview that it is "very hard" to avoid cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans when engineering tax cuts for the middle class.Then don't cut taxes "across the board", you syphilitic git.
In a Politico podcast released Wednesday, Mnuchin said avoiding a tax cut for wealthy Americans was impossible, due to how much the rich pay in taxes.
“The top 20 percent of the people pay 95 percent of the taxes. The top 10 percent of the people pay 81 percent of the taxes,” Mnuchin told Politico. “So when you’re cutting taxes across the board, it’s very hard not to give tax cuts to the wealthy with tax cuts to the middle class.
The only two reasons to propose an across-the-board tax cut is because he's either a lazy and stupid fool or because cutting taxes to the rich is the whole point of the game.
But that's the entire point of the Trump Oligarchy: To shift the costs of government onto those least able to pay. And to preserve the dynastic transfer of wealth via the Lucky Sperm Lotto.
Lets see:
ReplyDeleteNov. 2016 - "Any reductions we have in upper-income taxes will be offset by less deductions, so there will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class. There will be a big tax cut for the middle class, but any tax cuts we have for the upper class will be offset by less deductions that pay for it," Steven Mnuchin said in an interview with CNBC.
Apr. 2017 - "Well Charlie, as I've said before, the president's objective is about tax simplification. And we will be lowering the rate on the high end in return for eliminating almost all deductions. We're committed to keeping charitable deductions and mortgage interest but everything else is on the table and this is about tax simplification." (CBS News)
July 2017 - The Tax Policy Center has said the White House’s current proposal would mostly benefit wealthy Americans who tend to save rather than spend their tax savings. But Mnuchin said, President Trump’s “focus is on a middle-income tax cut” and “reforming the business tax system to make it competitive.” (USA Today)
July 2017 - "When we're talking about lowering the top rate, we're offsetting that with elimination of huge deductions. So for most people in the top rate, they're not going to get a tax cut," Mnuchin said Monday during an event hosted by Americans for Prosperity
Sep. 2017 - Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Sunday said he never made a "pledge" that there would be no absolute tax cut for the upper class in the administration's tax plan. During an interview on CNN's "State of the Union," Mnuchin was asked about previous comments, in which he said there would be no absolute tax cut for the upper class. "Can you reaffirm that pledge that there will be 'no absolute tax cut' for the upper class?" CNN's Jake Tapper asked Mnuchin. "It was never a promise. It was never a pledge. ... It was what the president's objective was," Mnuchin said. (The Hill)
Oct. 2017 - "So when you're cutting taxes across the board, it's very hard not to give tax cuts to the wealthy with tax cuts to the middle class," Mnuchin said in a podcast with Politico
Today's summary: Back in November, then Treasury Secretary nominee Steve Mnuchin appeared on CNBC and made a bold statement: under Donald Trump’s tax plan, “there will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class.” Then in May, he began the slow-but-steady process of walking back his transition-period claim, saying that while the president’s objective was to “make a middle-income tax cut,” he could not actually promise that this would occur, “since the results will be a combined effort of the administration and the House and Senate.” (Levin Report)
Today's scare tactics: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said stocks will crash if Congress fails to pass a tax bill. He's also the fellow who has said that tax reform would be done by now. There is "no question" the market rally has baked in the expectation of tax legislation, the former Goldman Sachs executive said in an interview with Politico. He said he believes markets will rise if Republicans manage to pass a bill and warned things could go south if they fail. "I think to the extent we get the tax deal done, the stock market will go up higher," he said. "But there's no question in my mind that if we don't get it done you're going to see a reversal of a significant amount of those gains." (The Street)
I understand Mnuchin flew through his Doubletalk 101 class with flying colors and aced the exam.
ReplyDeleteYours crankily,
The New York Crank
Lets take them at their mendacious word. If they want the poor to pay more of the nation's taxes, and the rich to have that burden lessened, set a minimum wage of $100k/year. All jobs. Every job.
ReplyDeleteYou'll definitely see the poor handling more of the tax burden, and the rich paying less. Right?
And a lot of what they're saying will help the middle class actually won't. Like the reduction of pass through to 25% will mostly allow very rich people to structure their earnings to show up in their pass through entities and get taxed at 25% instead of the 39+% they're (supposedly) paying at the margin now.
ReplyDeleteThat, in itself, is a tax cut for high earners, but is being sold as relief for middle and working class taxpayers.
So you can't really believe them even when they seem to be providing the details.
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/10/14/lies-lies-lies-lies-lies-lies-lies-lies-lies-lies/?module=BlogPost-ReadMore&version=Blog%20Main&action=Click&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body#more-41687
-Doug in Oakland
@ Nagleator: Yes, a realistic version of that is exactly the reform that is needed. Perhaps eliminate the tax deduction for CEO pay, severely restrict how much cheap company stock CEOs and the like can be paid in, and then..
ReplyDelete.. give corporations a large tax cut based strictly and solely on the product of their MEDIAN pay rate times the number of their employees, tweaked by ripple effects of their employee's spending in the local economy.
A large corporation paying mostly minimum wage would see no tax cut, while conversely it would see a substantial decrease in *its* taxes were it to raise the wages of all of its employees to the point where they were now paying significantly more in taxes, costing the government less in social program costs, and actually *creating* jobs by their spending.