Two weeks before the 2018 midterm elections, Donald Trump seemed to realize that his party was poised to suffer significant losses. The then-president, however, thought he could stem the tide with a new idea: He and congressional Republicans, Trump said two weeks before Election Day, were working “around the clock” on a new, “very major” tax cut, which would exclusively benefit the middle class.
The whole package would be ready, the then-president said, no later than Nov. 1 — five days before the midterms.
There was one rather dramatic flaw with Trump’s plan: It didn’t exist. He’d simply made it up. In fact, the whole story was utterly bizarre: Lawmakers weren’t on Capitol Hill; literally no one was working on the issue; and even White House officials were “mystified” by Trump’s absurd declarations.
But the then-president seemed to be working from the assumption that voters would hear the words “tax cuts,” swoon reflexively and immediately reward GOP candidates with support. If that meant touting a plan that existed only in Trump’s imagination and lying brazenly to the nation, so be it.
All of this came to mind anew, nearly six years later, as the former president embraces similar tactics again. NBC News reported:
Donald Trump called for rolling back part of his signature tax law Tuesday, suggesting he would seek to reinstate the state and local tax deduction, commonly known as SALT, that he controversially capped in the 2017 legislation. In a Truth Social post ahead of his trip to New York’s Long Island, the former president wrote that he would “get SALT back” and “lower your Taxes” if he returns to the White House in January.
It’s worth emphasizing for context that many congressional Republicans have spent years trying to defend the policy that Trump signed into law. The former president just cut them off at the knees, announcing — with fewer than 50 days until Election Day 2024 — that he’s prepared to undo part of his own ineffective and unpopular tax law.
The NBC News report added that the GOP candidate, in his online message, “didn’t elaborate or get specific” about the policy details. That’s true, of course. But it’s also true that Trump never elaborates or gets specific about policy details because he has no idea what he’s talking about and has spent his brief electoral career championing post-policy politics.
But just as important, if not more so, is the familiarity of the circumstances. This week, Trump unveiled a new promise related to state and local tax deductions. It came on the heels of similar promises related to cutting taxes on overtime pay. Which came on the heels of similar promises related to cutting taxes on tips. Which came on the heels of similar promises related to cutting taxes on Social Security benefits. Which came on the heels of similar promises related to extending the tax breaks for the wealthy that he signed into law seven years ago.
How would these policies work? Trump doesn’t know. How much would these tax policies cost? Trump doesn’t know. Who’d benefit from the measures? Trump doesn’t know. Why didn’t he pursue any of this during his four-year term in the White House? Trump doesn’t know.
The former president doesn’t have answers to any of these questions because — and this is the important part — they’re not actual tax policies.
Indeed, the most important thing to remember about Trump’s tax plans is that they’re not actual tax plans. They’re desperate grunts, blurted out without forethought or vetting. The Republican nominee is just throwing random tax-cut ideas at a wall, hoping they’ll make him more popular. What voters are witnessing are the desperate ploys of a candidate who (a) has no strategy to repair his campaign; (b) assumes voters will hear the phrase “tax cut” and respond in some kind of Pavlovian way; and (c) can’t even pretend to know or care about governing. As for the price tags, a recent New York Times report noted that Trump is “seeking to extend tax cuts he signed into law in 2017, a move that could cost roughly $4 trillion over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Ending taxes on Social Security benefits could cost roughly $1.6 trillion over a decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and plans to cut the corporate tax rate and end taxes on tips would cost hundreds of billions more.” Meanwhile, scrapping taxes on overtime pay would, by some estimates, cost roughly $1.1 trillion over 10 years, and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget projected that eliminating the SALT cap would raise the cost of extending the 2017 tax law by $1.2 trillion. Trump is simultaneously assuring voters that he’ll be able to shrink the budget deficit because, sure, why not.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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