When Donald Trump was running for president, he made repeated claims that his administration would repeal Obamacare “on day one.” Not only did Team Trump not get rid of the Affordable Care Act on its first day in office, it failed spectacularly to do so on Day 64, when Republican leadership and the White House agreed to call off the vote on the massively unpopular American Health Care Act. So now the Trump administration is trying to learn from its mistakes as it switches gears, with the goal of proving that it has the faintest idea what its doing, to another campaign promise: comprehensive tax reform. The White House has signaled that this will be a cake walk compared to the surprisingly complicated matter that is health care. Unfortunately for the Trump Grille proprietor turned 45th president, tax reform is not a cake walk. Nor are Democrats, whose favor Trump is half-heartedly attempting to curry, in any mood to help the president redistribute the nation’s wealth upward. Per The Wall Street Journal:
Democrats say they oppose net tax cuts and will resist proposals that mostly benefit high-income households. Those priorities diverge from President Donald Trump’s repeated promise to “cut the hell out of taxes” and congressional Republicans’ plans to lower marginal tax rates and repeal the estate tax. “Tax reform’s got to be responsible and it’s got to be progressive,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D., Md.). Republicans made overtures across the aisle in recent weeks and, in theory, Democratic participation on tax policy could ease legislative challenges for Republicans vexed by slim House and Senate majorities and internal disagreements. By attracting Democratic votes, Republicans could overcome procedural hurdles without uniting fractious wings of their own party.
There is, at some level, rhetorical room for agreement. Mr. Trump says middle-class tax cuts are a top priority. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) says he’s aiming for his plan to be revenue neutral—collecting as much money over the next decade as the current system does. Mix Mr. Trump’s class rhetoric, Mr. Ryan’s budgetary promise and the prospect of spending on infrastructure and there is a recipe for bipartisanship. But so far, those priorities aren’t widely shared among Republicans and GOP plans haven’t matched them. Mr. Trump’s campaign plan delivered half its tax cuts to the top 1% of households, according to the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. House Republicans haven’t shown in detail how their plan adds up and don’t want to tie infrastructure and taxes together. Lower tax rates on businesses, investors and top earners are a unifying force in the GOP, and many lawmakers are reluctant to give that up to get a deal with Democrats. As the Journal notes, even if Democrats and the White came to a “conceptual agreement on taxes,” any agreement would likely “drive many Republicans away and require the Trump administration and lawmakers to make decisions on hundreds of details.” And that’s not the only thing Team Trump needs to grapple with when it comes to winning over Democrats. According to The New York Times, Democrats may refuse to play ball unless Trump finally releases his long-awaited tax returns. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, said this week that tax code changes should be delayed until members of Congress can review Mr. Trump’s tax returns to see how an overhaul of the tax code might benefit him. And last week Terri A. Sewell, an Alabama Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, declared at a hearing that it was “imperative to know how such tax reform affects the president.”
“The American people want to see what this is about,” Senator Ron Wyden told the Times. “Are our interests being protected or are these deals that somehow promote his interests?”
Meanwhile, perhaps having read the writing on the Capitol rotunda wall, the White House is reportedly “going back to the drawing board for Republican consensus to overhaul” the tax system. According to the Associated Press, under consideration are “a series of unorthodox proposals including a drastic cut to the payroll tax, aimed at appealing to Democrats.”