U.S. Budget Negotiations

[gtyellowjacket]

Trump is now telling Congressional Republicans to raise taxes on the rich. I think he's finally running into math.

Trump tells Congress to raise taxes on the rich in budget bill​

Republicans in the Senate have floated this already and been shot down, but ebb and flow I guess.

Would be interested in the math on how much that helps, though. The gap in their budgeting so far has been enormous.

On a related note, what is politically tricky here is that unless they come through on other working and middle class tax cuts, the working and middle class voter won’t actually feel the reduced tax rate — from their perspective, things will remain same. The rates would revert to Obama era rates if nothing is done but that can be tough to effectively message.

One of Trump's proposals is "pushing to raise the top tax rate from 37% to 39.6% for individuals earning $2.5 million and higher or joint filers earning $5 million, with carve-outs for small businesses, according to one source."

Another is to plug the carried interest loophole for private equity.

I'm not against it but it's not likely to raise that much money. The carried interest proposal would cut the deficit by $13B over 10 years. That's a drop on the bucket. Just not sure how many people make $2.5M a year. That might be .01% or even less.