Trump faces challenges in pushing tax reform
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E-mail Xinhua, October 25, 2017
U.S. President Donald Trump is facing challenges in pushing forward a major tax revamp, at a time of bitter partisan rivalry and bickering in Washington.
Trump on Tuesday met with Republican lawmakers over lunch, talking about taxes as the businessman-turned-president presses toward his goal of passing major tax legislation, in what the White House calls a bid to boost the middle class and make U.S. companies more competitive.
In a press briefing with reporters on Tuesday after the meeting, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump "discussed the urgent need to focus on cutting taxes for hard working American families."
"We must also make American companies more competitive so that they can create more jobs and boost wages for American workers. And we must simplify the burdensome tax code that is currently rigged in favor of the wealthy and well-connected," she added.
But many Democrats remain opposed to the president's tax plan, contending that it benefits the rich and leaves the middle class to pay the nation's bills.
In a press conference on Tuesday, Senator Chuck Schumer, a leading Democrat, said Trump's plan is a tax break for the rich, adding that Trump and fellow Republicans are not telling the truth about what their plan does and how it might impact ordinary Americans.
"What the president says and what the Republican plan does are polar opposites," the Democratic senator told reporters.
Indeed, Trump may well have a fight on his hands with Democrats once he tries to push a bill through Congress, as some experts believe Democrats will oppose the legislation.
"Most Democrats will oppose the GOP tax cuts because they are tilted in favor of corporations and wealthy interests, and not average Americans," Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West told Xinhua.
"If they supported tax cuts, Democrats would want them more targeted on the working class people who need financial help and who will spend the money and help revive economic growth. Their fear is the wealthy simply will save the money from the tax cuts and not help the economy through consumer spending," West said.
Republicans are close to unity on the tax cuts, West said. Their biggest challenge will be convincing the deficit hawks to support a bill that will add more than a trillion U.S. dollars to the budget deficit in the coming decade. That will force Republicans to accept a much larger deficit than has been the case in recent years, West said.
Tuesday's meeting came amid a spat between Trump and key lawmakers in his own party, including Senator John McCain, who ran for president in 2008 against former President Barack Obama.
The president has been involved in a tit-for-tat bickering marathon with McCain, and has been embroiled in an ongoing feud with Republican Senator Bob Corker, with Corker on Tuesday saying he would not support Trump's run for the presidency again, if given the chance.
Experts said such spats threaten to derail Trump's legislative agenda, as Republicans have a very slim majority and need every vote they can muster.
Aparna Mathur, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, told Xinhua: "I think Republicans are very likely to come together on a package that pushes forward the corporate side reforms."
Democrats may agree to those as well, conditional on no tax hikes for the middle class and no big tax cuts for the wealthy, Mathur added.
"I do think President Trump needs all the support he can get, especially within the Republican party, to be able to push this through," Mathur said.
Party unity is also important to Trump at a time when less than one-third of Americans support the president's tax plan. According to a Reuters' poll released Tuesday, more than two-thirds of respondents said cutting the massive U.S. deficit is more important than slashing taxes.
The U.S. deficit is ballooning at 20 trillion dollars, which is more than the nation's annual GDP, although GOP lawmakers that back the plan said it would lead to an economic boost that would lead to higher overall tax receipts.
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