Trump Privately Pushed Speaker Johnson to Create a New Bracket to Raise Taxes on the Rich: Report
AP Photo/Paul Sancya
President Donald Trump reportedly pushed Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to create a new tax bracket to raise taxes on the rich.
Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman broke the news on Thursday that “on a phone call Wednesday,” Trump pressured Johnson “to raise the top tax rate and close the carried interest loophole.”
“The White House has toyed with hiking the top rate for the last few months. But this intervention raises the stakes — big time,” Sherman added.
Sherman later added some details to the plan, which would create a new tax bracket raising taxes on “individuals making $2.5M or $5M jointly” up to “39.6%.”
Reports have surfaced in recent months that the Trump White House has been eyeing raising taxes on the highest-earning Americans. Semafor’s Burgess Everett reported on an April meeting where Trump told GOP Senators he was open to the idea. Everett reported at the time that after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked him about the possibility of tax increases for the rich, Trump said “he’d be fine with that idea.”
In late April, Trump was asked in the Oval Office by a reporter, “Would you support a millionaire tax?”
“I think it would be disruptive because a lot of the millionaires would leave the country,” Trump responded. “You know, the old days, they left states. They’d go from one state to the other. Now, with transportation so quick and so easy, they leave countries. You lose a lot of money if you do that.”
Everett’s report added weight behind a scoop from Axios’s Marc Caputo and Neil Irwin in late March. They reported at the time, Trump’s White House was eyeing a “surprising option to help fulfill his campaign-trail promises: Allowing the richest Americans’ tax rates to rise in return for cutting taxes on tips, a senior White House official tells Axios.”
“Some White House officials believe letting income taxes on the very highest earners rise would buy breathing room on other priorities, and help blunt Democrats’ attacks as they seek to extend President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts,” the report added before noting, “Officials say all discussions are preliminary and nothing is set in stone.”
Trump has long promised to renew his 2017 tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of the year. Currently, the top income tax rate is 37% levied on income above $609,351 for an individual or $731,201 for a married couple.
The Axios report added that the potential pivot on taxes comes amid internal concern about the optics of cutting services for Americans while also lowering taxes on the richest earners in the country.
“If we renew tax cuts for the rich paid for by throwing people off Medicaid, we’re gonna get f–king slaughtered,” a White House official told Axios.
