Plans to bypass Congress and do it himself, except of
course, not with his own money
Treasury Secretary
Steven Mnuchin and his wife Louise Linton arrive at the White House for a state
dinner April 24, 2018 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty
Images)
No longer bothering to
pretend that its tax policy amounts to anything more than dumping as much money
as possible into the pockets of ultra-wealthy CEOs and investors, the
Trump administration is considering a plan to leapfrog Congress and
unilaterally hand the richest Americans another $100 billion in tax cuts.
As the New
York Times reports, Treasury Secretary and wannabe Bond villain Steve Mnuchin is
studying whether his department has the authority to change "the
definition of 'cost' for calculating capital gains, allowing taxpayers to
adjust the initial value of an asset, such as a home or a share of stock, for
inflation when it sells."
Almost two-thirds of
the benefits of such a change would go to the top 0.1 percent, the Times notes.
While lauded by
Republican members of Congress and prominent right-wing anti-tax crusader
Grover Norquist, the Trump administration's legally questionable plot was
quickly denounced by progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups as yet another
"disgusting" attempt by Trump to do "everything he can to enrich the wealthy
while stacking the deck against the middle class."
Ted Genoways,
editor-at-large of Pacific Standard, likened the White House's plan to reward
the richest Americans by executive fiat to "that part of every bank heist
movie, where the robbers realize they've triggered the alarms and the cops are
on the way, and so they just start stuffing the bags with as much money as they
can carry."
Trump's latest plan to
reward the wealthy comes as Republicans are fast at work on their "tax cuts 2.0," which will double down on
the $1.5 trillion gift to the rich Trump signed into law last year.
"Donald Trump wants to go around Congress and hand $100 billion to his rich buddies on top of the $1.5 trillion he gave away to billionaires and big corporations last year. D.C. works great if you're rich and powerful." —Sen. Elizabeth Warren
While, as predicted,
the tax cuts have been a major boon for CEOs and major corporations—which have
used a huge portion of their savings to buy back their own stock—workers have seen
virtually no gains from the tax bill. In fact, even as the economy continues to
grow at a steady clip, wages are actually declining—which means that all of
the new growth is going straight to the top.
