Tapper to Mnuchin: Why Does Trump Keep Falsely Claiming GOP Tax Plan Is Biggest Tax Cut in History?
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says the GOP tax plan "is the biggest tax cut in history on mostly every single part of the plan” #CNNSOTU https://t.co/JETquH6Kdk
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) November 12, 2017
Over the past few months, President Donald Trump has been selling the GOP tax reform proposal as the biggest tax cut in history. Fact checkers, however, have pointed out that the president is making a false claim as there are at least six previous bills that cut taxes by more than the current plan.
Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union this morning, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was grilled by host Jake Tapper on the president’s insistence that they are proposing the biggest tax cut ever. And Mnuchin continually sidestepped the question while simultaneously promoting the size of the tax cuts.
After Tapper played clips of Trump making his boasts, the CNN anchor noted that they have tried to find a way to make it true but couldn’t, highlighting that no matter which metric you look at, it just doesn’t hold up. “Isn’t it important to just have factual debates when discussing these things?” Tapper asked Mnuchin.
The Trump administration official explained that there are many ways to look at it and that it represents the biggest change in the tax system since Ronald Reagan was in office. “That’s not the biggest tax cut, though,” Tapper shot back.
Mnuchin went on to add that the proposed corporate tax cut from 35% to 20% would be the “biggest tax cut to make our businesses competitive” and that the pass-through rate would be the lowest since the 1930s. Tapper noted that Mnuchin was making factual arguments that were different than Trump, who has just roundly said it is the “biggest tax cut in history.”
“It is the biggest tax cut in history on mostly every single part of the plan,” Munchin responded.
Watch the clip above, via CNN.
[image via screengrab]
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