Tax Cutters

Asked by George Stephanopoulos if he can promise middle-class families won’t have to pay higher taxes under the plan, economic adviser Gary Cohn says, “I can’t guarantee anything.”

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The notion that passing the tax cut will help the party in 2018 is the conventional wisdom, and it is what Republicans have been asserting for months. But not only is this false, it is increasingly obvious that many Republicans themselves do not believe it.

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While details of the plan remain sparse, one already-obvious source of fiscal pain is the plan to eliminate the federal tax deduction for state and local taxes. Republicans love this idea because it raises lots of revenue, and it hits only states that have state income taxes. (Penalizing states that raise revenue through the income tax encourages them to shift over to more regressive tax streams, a secondary benefit for the affluent.)

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The Wall Street Journal editorial page argues that those Republican members of Congress must be willing to make their constituencies take a tax increase for the greater good of reducing taxes for rich people elsewhere.

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And indeed, blue-state Republican members of Congress are so far willing to take one for the team. The plan is “so good on every front,” says New York congressman Chris Collins, that “it does not become a big deal” if some constituents get hit.

  NY Magazine

You might not want your constituents to hear that.

On the other hand, many of those members already voted for the Republican Obamacare repeal plan, so they might assume they’re going to lose anyway, and might as well lay the groundwork for a lobbying career.

There IS that.

A recent ABC/Washington Post poll shows where public opinions stand at the outset of the tax-cut debate. And 28 percent of the public supports Trump’s tax plan, against 44 percent opposing it. This does not reflect the barely revealed details about the proposal, but it is a useful baseline for gauging what Americans believe about Trump and his plans for taxes.

They must just be responding on what they know about Trump, because they obviously didn't know what was in the plan. I don't see when the poll was conducted, but it was printed September 26 - before Trump vaguely outlined it in Indiana.

The poll finds that Americans support cutting taxes for middle- and lower-income Americans by large margins (78-19), and opposes cutting taxes for the affluent by nearly as wide a margin (33-62).

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.