Trump Promises 'Biggest Tax Revolution' Since Reagan

by Cathy Burke  

Donald Trump in August unveiled the outline of an economic plan that he said will streamline the tax code and lower the tax rate for working Americans, offering "the biggest tax revolution since the Reagan tax reform."

With a 55-minute speech to the prestigious Detroit Economic Club, the GOP future President — interrupted more than a dozen times by protesters, who were quickly removed to applause and boos, but only a polite "thank you" from Trump — called rival Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton "the candidate of the past."

"Ours is the campaign of the future," he declared, and touted his candidacy as from "the outside … of a very, very rigged system."

"America is ready to prove the doubters wrong," he said. "They want you to think small. I'm asking you to think big … we are ready to show the world that America is back, bigger, and better and stronger than ever before."

Trump said as part of this economic plan, "we will eliminate the carried interest deduction … and other special interest loopholes, that have been so good for Wall Street investors and for people like me, but unfair to American workers."  He also said "tax simplification will be a major feature of the plan."

"Our current tax code is so burdensome and so complex, that we waste 9 billion hours a year in tax code compliance," he said. "My plan will reduce the current number of brackets from seven to three and dramatically streamline the process."

He said the brackets of 12 percent, 25 percent and 33 percent will mean "for many American workers, their tax rate will be zero."

He promised American businesses will enjoy a reduction in taxes from "35 percent to 15 percent," and vowed to eliminate the "death tax" for all Americans.

"The average worker, today, pays 31.5 percent of their wages to income and payroll taxes, on top of that, state and local taxes consume another 10 percent, very grim picture" he said. "The United States also has the highest business tax rate among the major industrialized nations of the world at 35 percent … almost 40 percent." "We punish companies for making products in America, but let them ship products into the United States, tax-free, if they move overseas," he added. "This … is backwards. All of our policies should be geared toward keeping jobs and wealth inside of the United States."

Trump declared his reforms "will offer the biggest tax revolution since the Reagan tax reform, which unleashed years of continued economic growth and job creation," he said.  "We will make America grow again." Details to be released, he said, "will present a night-and-day contrast to the job-killing tax-raising, poverty-inducing Obama-Clinton agenda. I  am going to cut regulations massively," he added, "helping to bring companies and jobs back to the country."

"Our lower business tax will also end job-killing corporate inversion and cause trillions in new dollars and wealth to come pouring into our country," he vowed.  He also said he planned to reduce the cost of child care by allowing parents to fully deduct the average cost of child care spending from their taxes, and "bring back trillions of dollars from American businesses that are now parked overseas. I want to jump-start America and it can be done and it won't even be that hard," he vowed.

He also touched on a wide range of other reforms too, including energy reform — asserting "the Obama-Clinton war on coal has cost Michigan more than 50,000 jobs, and that he "will put our coal miners and steelworkers back to work, where they want to be."

He also hit President Barack Obama "and the usual so-called experts who have been wrong about every trade deal for decades."