The chatter continues this morning about Donald Trump’s call for raising taxes on the rich. Justin Green, the political editor of IJ Review, tweets:
It might frighten the donor class, but the bulk of conservative voters aren’t especially worried about protecting low taxes for rich people.
Is that correct? I dug up a few polls and found that majorities of Republican and conservative voters oppose raising taxes on the rich.
A Gallup poll this spring found that while a majority of Americans overall favors redistributing wealth with higher taxes on the rich, only 29 percent of Republicans agree, while 70 percent disagrees. Among conservatives it’s 32-66. A Pew poll in 2014 found that while a majority of Americans favors raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations to expand programs for the poor, only 29 percent of Republicans agree, while 59 percent of Republicans favor lowering taxes on the wealthy to encourage investment and growth.
Of course, these polls don’t measure precisely what Trump is calling for. And it’s here, I think, that Trump’s comments about this have real value. Here’s what Trump said:
“I would take carried interest out, and I would let people making hundreds of millions of dollars-a-year pay some tax, because right now they are paying very little tax and I think it’s outrageous,” Trump said. “I want to lower taxes for the middle class.”…
“The middle class is getting clobbered in this country. You know the middle class built this country, not the hedge fund guys, but I know people in hedge funds that pay almost nothing and it’s ridiculous, okay?”
Taken all together, what this means (I think) is that Trump would raise taxes on investment income precisely because that would pay for middle class tax relief; that lower tax rates on investments are fundamentally unfair; and that hiking taxes on investments would not dampen economic growth. That seems very much like a broad rejection of trickle down dogma. (The necessary caveats: We don’t know whether Trump’s overall approach would raise or lower the tax burden on the rich; we don’t know whether Trump believes any of this; and he could suddenly reverse course on it at any moment.)
Trump does seem to have broken with GOP dogma here, and to my knowledge, none of his Republican rivals have responded directly to it. But Marco Rubio is justifying his call for eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends by arguing that investment creates jobs for people like his bartender father. It’s an interesting contrast.
One of the odd paradoxes of Trump’s rise has been that even as he is little more than an entertainer, his willingness to say what other Republicans won’t has forced out into the open genuine policy debates among Republicans that had previously been shrouded in vagueness or imprisoned within party orthodoxy. His call for mass deportations has unmasked GOP evasions over what to do about the 11 million, forcing something close to a real debate on that question. His vow not to cut Social Security benefits has led some to ask whether GOP voters might actually disagree with party dogma on the need to cut them.
If Republicans respond to Trump’s (apparent) apostasy on taxes, the debate would be useful, not to mention fascinating, and could shed more light on whether Republican voters really agree with GOP orthodoxy on “protecting low taxes for rich people,” as Green puts it, in the name of job creation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...n-voters-agree-with-him/?tid=trending_strip_2
It might frighten the donor class, but the bulk of conservative voters aren’t especially worried about protecting low taxes for rich people.
Is that correct? I dug up a few polls and found that majorities of Republican and conservative voters oppose raising taxes on the rich.
A Gallup poll this spring found that while a majority of Americans overall favors redistributing wealth with higher taxes on the rich, only 29 percent of Republicans agree, while 70 percent disagrees. Among conservatives it’s 32-66. A Pew poll in 2014 found that while a majority of Americans favors raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations to expand programs for the poor, only 29 percent of Republicans agree, while 59 percent of Republicans favor lowering taxes on the wealthy to encourage investment and growth.
Of course, these polls don’t measure precisely what Trump is calling for. And it’s here, I think, that Trump’s comments about this have real value. Here’s what Trump said:
“I would take carried interest out, and I would let people making hundreds of millions of dollars-a-year pay some tax, because right now they are paying very little tax and I think it’s outrageous,” Trump said. “I want to lower taxes for the middle class.”…
“The middle class is getting clobbered in this country. You know the middle class built this country, not the hedge fund guys, but I know people in hedge funds that pay almost nothing and it’s ridiculous, okay?”
Taken all together, what this means (I think) is that Trump would raise taxes on investment income precisely because that would pay for middle class tax relief; that lower tax rates on investments are fundamentally unfair; and that hiking taxes on investments would not dampen economic growth. That seems very much like a broad rejection of trickle down dogma. (The necessary caveats: We don’t know whether Trump’s overall approach would raise or lower the tax burden on the rich; we don’t know whether Trump believes any of this; and he could suddenly reverse course on it at any moment.)
Trump does seem to have broken with GOP dogma here, and to my knowledge, none of his Republican rivals have responded directly to it. But Marco Rubio is justifying his call for eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends by arguing that investment creates jobs for people like his bartender father. It’s an interesting contrast.
One of the odd paradoxes of Trump’s rise has been that even as he is little more than an entertainer, his willingness to say what other Republicans won’t has forced out into the open genuine policy debates among Republicans that had previously been shrouded in vagueness or imprisoned within party orthodoxy. His call for mass deportations has unmasked GOP evasions over what to do about the 11 million, forcing something close to a real debate on that question. His vow not to cut Social Security benefits has led some to ask whether GOP voters might actually disagree with party dogma on the need to cut them.
If Republicans respond to Trump’s (apparent) apostasy on taxes, the debate would be useful, not to mention fascinating, and could shed more light on whether Republican voters really agree with GOP orthodoxy on “protecting low taxes for rich people,” as Green puts it, in the name of job creation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...n-voters-agree-with-him/?tid=trending_strip_2
