The massive corporate tax cut passed by the GOP isn’t playing well in middle America. So much for their big accomplishment. So, how to appease the suspicious middle class? For Donald Trump, it meant making up a tax cut, out of thin air.
On Saturday, to an astonished press contingent and an even more surprised White House staff, Trump declared a 10% middle-class tax cut to be enacted before the election. One problem; Congress is not in session and no tax cut is possible without them.
Donald Trump is trying his best to follow the adage if they build a story, the details will come later (or they won’t). Problem is how to make Trump look like he has some idea of what’s going on has become a full-time job for his administration. The Washington Post reports:
The great election-eve middle-class tax cut began not as a factual proposal, but as a false promise.
When President Trump abruptly told reporters over the weekend that middle-income Americans would receive a 10 percent tax cut before the midterm elections, neither officials on Capitol Hill nor in his administration knew anything about such a tax cut. The White House released no substantive information. And although cutting taxes requires legislation, Congress is not scheduled to be back in session until after the Nov. 6 elections.
Yet Washington’s bureaucratic machinery whirred into action nonetheless — working to produce a policy that could be seen as supporting Trump’s whim.
One such option now under discussion by administration officials is a symbolic nonbinding “resolution” designed to signal to voters ahead of the elections that if Republicans hold their congressional majorities they might pass a future 10 percent tax cut for the middle class. And House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) said Tuesday that he would work with the White House and the Treasury Department to develop a plan “over the coming weeks.”
The Washington Post says this is far from the first time a scenario like this has taken place saying, “The Pentagon leaped into action to both hold a military parade and launch a ‘Space Force’ on the president’s whims.”
Trump is banking on things like this to help rally his base before election day. And there is some evidence it is working. Gallup’s latest polling shows:
President Donald Trump’s job approval rating has improved to 44% each of the past two weeks. Trump’s weekly approval rating was 38% in mid-September and had been averaging 40% from late July through late September.
Politico points out the media may also be helping Trump by reporting on these wild ideas without calling them what they are, lies:
The specifics may not matter, though, in the days before an election — especially as the media echoes his message, often uncritically.
“Trump says ‘major tax cut’ on the way for the middle class” read one headline on Fox News business on Oct. 22. “Trump: Working on tax cut for middle class,” an MSNBC chyron declared during his remarks Monday. Making headlines like those may have been Trump’s clearest plan all along.
And for Republicans making the final sprint to the midterms, Trump talking about tax cuts – even fanciful ones with no chance of happening – is better than Trump talking about much of anything else.