White House budget director Mick Mulvaney dismissed critics of the Trump administration’s proposed tax overhaul, saying a detailed analysis wouldn’t be possible until the full plan is crafted.
“I’ve seen the criticisms,” Mulvaney said. “All I can tell you is that no one can make real, detailed analysis of the plan yet because it’s not finished.”
Mulvaney said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the plan that Republican negotiators, including himself, revealed earlier this week was just a framework, adding that President Donald Trump is seeking two main pillars for tax reform. The first, he said, was for the middle class to pay less in taxes and have an easier time filing, and the second is bringing down the corporate tax rate.
Trump “doesn’t really care what happens to the top 1%,” Mulvaney said.
“This really is about the middle class and the corporate tax rate,” he said.
Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, in an interview following Mulvaney, said the White House official was “wrong” to say one couldn’t draw conclusions about the tax plan. He said one analysis showed most of the benefits of the tax plan over time would go to the top 1% of earners, and blasted Trump for saying the plan would not benefit the wealthiest Americans.
“For Trump to go on television and say, ‘Oh, this doesn’t benefit the wealthy’ is absolutely outrageous,” Sanders said. “Of course it benefits the wealthy, and of course it benefits large, multinational corporations.”
An early analysis from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a think tank in Washington, said the top 1% of households would receive more of a tax cut than the bottom 95%.
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the goal is to pass a middle class tax cut, but said he could not guarantee it.
“You can’t make guarantees because every single person’s taxes are different,” Mnuchin said.
Mnuchin said he could not comment when asked if Trump would release his tax returns as the debate over tax reform continues.
House Speaker Paul Ryan made a similar point in an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” saying the purpose of the tax reform plan was to cut taxes for the middle class, but in practice it would depend on the individual’s situation.
Ryan also said the tax reform package would not add to the nation’s debt.
“This will have to be a deficit-neutral bill,” Ryan said.
Speaking on CBS, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Republicans were wrong to say the tax cuts would fuel enough growth to increase government revenues while cutting rates. He pointed to Kansas, which faced budgetary shortfalls after Republican Gov. Sam Brownback enacted large tax cuts.
“This idea that cutting taxes on the wealthy, this trickle-down economics which the Republican Party loves, does not create growth,” Schumer said.