President Donald Trump outlined on Tuesday his framework for tax reform to a crowd of hundreds at the Indiana State Fair Grounds.
“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and I guess it’s probably something I could say that I’m very good at,” Trump said. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. We’re going to cut taxes for the middle class, make the tax code simpler and more fair for everyday Americans.”
The plan would reduce the number of individual tax brackets from seven to just three, with tax rates of 12 percent, 25 percent, and 35 percent. (Top earners are currently taxed at a rate of 39.6 percent.) Congress could also create a higher fourth bracket. Among many other changes, Trump also called for the standard deductions for single and married filers to be doubled, and the corporate tax rate to be reduced to 20 percent. He was careful to frame the plan as a boon to middle-class Americans.
“It’s not good for me, believe me,” Trump told the crowd. Though as CNN notes, “the claim was impossible to verify, though, as Trump has refused to release his tax returns.”
Conservative groups praised the plan as a proposal that would “turbocharge the economy”; Democrats criticized it as a tax cut for the rich.
“If this framework is all about the middle class, then Trump tower is middle-class housing,” Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) told the New York Times. “It violates Trump’s tax pledge that the rich would not gain at all under his plan by offering sweetheart deals for powerful CEOs, giveaways for campaign coffers and a new way to cheat taxes for Mar-a-Lago’s loyal members.”
