'Trump Plan Is Tax Cut for the Rich, Even Hedge Fund Managers'

Josh Barro:

Trump Plan Is Tax Cut for the Rich, Even Hedge Fund Managers: Donald Trump’s tax plan, released Monday, does not live up to the populist language he has offered on taxes all summer.

When talking about taxes in this campaign, Donald Trump has often sounded like a different kind of Republican. He says he will take on “the hedge fund guys” and their carried interest loophole. He thinks it’s “outrageous” how little tax some multimillionaires pay. But his plan calls for major tax cuts not just for the middle class but also for the richest Americans — even the dreaded hedge fund managers. And despite his campaign’s assurances that the plan is “fiscally responsible,” it would grow budget deficits by trillions of dollars over a decade.

You could call Mr. Trump’s plan a higher-energy version of the tax plan Jeb Bush announced earlier this month: similar in structure, but with lower rates and wider tax brackets, meaning individual taxpayers would pay even less than under Mr. Bush, and the government would lose even more tax revenue. ...

A document from the Trump campaign says all these tax cuts would be “fully paid for” by the elimination of deductions and by a one-time tax on foreign profits of American firms held abroad. That math simply does not add up: As discussed above, rich people do not currently take enough tax deductions to offset the tax rate cuts Mr. Trump proposes, and the one-time foreign profits tax might raise $250 billion, not close to the trillions of revenue that would be lost through tax rate cuts.

At a news conference Monday, Mr. Trump offered another way his tax plan would pay for itself: economic growth, perhaps as fast as 6 percent a year, again a higher-energy estimate than the 4 percent Mr. Bush has proposed. But there is no evidence to support the idea that such rapid growth can be produced through tax cuts.

"That math simply does not add up" could be applied to Republican tax plans in general. There's always some sort of magical thinking that makes their plans work (or, perhaps, better described as cunning deception that relies upon the press remaining effectively silent, or playing the "he said she said" game that gives people little information about truth, in the face of absurd claims). Talk like a populist, act like a plutocrat seems to be a winning formula -- somehow many who have been disaffected by the economic system believe Republicans are on their side, and have their best interests at heart, that all the unfairness they see around them (which is not always real, but rather stoked by the closed loop news system they adhere to) will be addressed by a Republican administration. Not gonna happen.