2016 Postmortem

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(86,013 posts) Thu May 12, 2016, 08:37 AM May 2016

Hillary: Trump Tax Plan – By the Billionaire, For the Billionaires

Last edited Thu May 12, 2016, 09:54 AM - Edit history (1)

Josh Schwerin ?@JoshSchwerin 19h19 hours ago
The Trump Tax Plan – By the Billionaire, For the Billionaires
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/factsheets/2016/05/11/the-trump-tax-plan-by-the-billionaire-for-the-billionaires/ …

Thomas Kaplan ?@thomaskaplan
Hillary Clinton in New Jersey: “Donald Trump’s tax plan was written by a billionaire for billionaires.”

Tax plan Trump called “tremendous” and “inspiring” will add $34 trillion to the debt, at the expense of working families, seniors, and economy

The trillions in tax cuts for millionaires, billionaires and corporations laid out in Donald Trump’s tax plan would be an enormous boon for the top one percent of earners, made at the expense of working families, seniors and the health of our economy.

Trump extensively praised the plan when he released it, calling it “inspiring,” “tremendous” and saying it would lead to an “amazing” tax code. Now, after a little pressure, he says he’s going to revisit his tax plan. But his risky and regressive tax proposal is laid out on his website, in black and white, and has been available since last year for anyone to see.

Trump’s plan would increase the national debt by $34 trillion and cut millionaires’ taxes to the lowest level in modern history as a share of their incomes, while one analysis found middle class families could lose more than $2,000 a year with all the cuts needed to pay for it.

FACT SHEET: Trump’s Risky and Regressive Tax Plan Slashes Taxes for Millionaires and Corporations

Donald Trump wants to run the American economy like the companies he drove in and out of bankruptcy: running up debt by the billions, and running it into the ground. His tax plan would slash tax rates for millionaires, billionaires, and the largest corporations – adding $34 trillion to our national debt over 20 years according to independent, non-partisan experts. His plan would provide a tax cut of $1.3 million per year for multimillionaires in the top 0.1%, giving them a raise of $100,000 per month, and shower $3 trillion on millionaires and billionaires over the next 10 years. And ordinary families would be left holding the bag, with the top 0.1% of taxpayers getting more relief than the bottom 60% combined.

Trump’s proposal is a plan for the billionaires, by the billionaire. Despite his attempt at a general election “makeover,” his tax plan shows how unreliable and unready Trump is to manage the largest economy in the world, and make sure the tax code is not rigged for the wealthy and big corporations:

Trump’s tax plan would be great for Trump – slashing taxes for millionaires by $3 trillion, and giving multi-millionaires a raise of $100,000 per month: Trump and his tax plan are a perfect example of a rigged system that showers millionaires and billionaires with tax breaks they do not need. His plan would give $3 trillion over 10 years or more than 35% of its tax breaks to millionaires, enough money to ensure Medicare and Social Security’s solvency for the next 75 years, repair our ailing infrastructure, or raise every person now living in poverty up to the poverty line. Trump would give multi-millionaires in the top 0.1% like himself a raise of $1.3 million a year, or $100,000 a month.

Trump is right to call himself the “king of debt,” because his tax plan would add $34 trillion to the debt over the next two decades: The independent, non-partisan Tax Policy Center analyzed Trump’s tax plan and found: “Including interest costs, the proposal would add $11.2 trillion to the national debt by 2026 and $34.1 trillion by 2036 . . . . Assuming the tax cuts are not offset by spending cuts, the national debt would rise by an estimated 39 percent of GDP in 2026 and by nearly 80 percent of GDP by 2036.” Americans worried about whether he is prepared to lead our economy should take him seriously when he says, “I am the king of debt. I do love debt. I love debt and I love playing with it.”

Trump’s tax plan provides more than $3 trillion in tax breaks for corporations – and slashes tax rates on hedge funds and Wall Street money managers by one-third: Trump’s tax plan slashes corporate tax rates, cutting taxes for corporations by more than $3 trillion over 10 years. Additionally, despite claims to the contrary, the plan gives an even bigger tax break to hedge funds and Wall Street money managers that today benefit from the “carried interest” loophole, which can allow them to pay lower rates than middle-class families. That is because the plan lowers tax rates on their kind of business - as the Tax Policy Center describes, “carried interest would be taxed at a much lower rate than under current law…because the entities that earn carried interest income are organized as partnerships…Under the Trump plan, that income would be taxed at a top rate of 15 percent, a reduction of more than one-third.”

Trump’s tax breaks for millionaires would leave working families holding the bag: Under Trump’s plan, the top 0.1% of taxpayers, the wealthiest 1 out of every 1,000, earning multiple millions of dollars a year on average, would get more tax relief than the bottom 60% of taxpayers combined. One analysis found that the net effect of Trump’s enormous tax cuts for the wealthiest and the spending cuts that could be needed to pay for them would leave working families far worse off: a middle class family would lose, not gain, more than $2,000.

Trump’s tax plan and irresponsible statements clearly demonstrate the risk a Trump presidency would bring to working families. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, will bring America together to expand and strengthen Social Security and Medicare, rein in risk on Wall Street, close special tax breaks for the wealthiest and largest corporations, and create good-paying jobs with rising incomes for middle-class families. She believes that instead of showering tax cuts on the most fortunate and leaving ordinary Americans to fend for themselves, we need to break down barriers and build an economy where we can grow together.