American Compass, the organization funded by progressive donors and led by former Mitt Romney staffer Oren Cass, released a budget plan today calling for an end to the 2017 Trump Tax Cuts.
The proposed budget released by American Compass, which describes itself as “the flagship for a healthier and more responsive post-Trump conservative movement,” calls for trillions of dollars in new tax increases along with the full expiration of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), the 2017 Republican tax cuts signed by President Trump.
Allowing the TCJA to expire would lead to higher average tax burdens for taxpayers at all income levels. This would mean higher individual tax rates, narrower tax brackets, and a near-halving of the standard deduction and the child tax credit.
American Compass’ budget plan outlines two recommended policy scenarios: (1) The “American Compass Moderate Case,” and (2) the “American Compass Aggressive Case.”
Both of these policy cases contain the full expiration of the Trump tax cuts. Both cases would even undue aspects of the Trump tax cuts that were made permanent by increasing the corporate tax rate. The “moderate” case would raise the corporate rate from 21% to 25% while American Compass’ “aggressive” case would increase the corporate rate to the Biden-prefered level of 28%.
American Compass’ budget plan is at direct odds with the agenda of both the Trump campaign and Congressional Republicans.
President Trump has made it clear that his campaign will pursue further tax cuts and make TCJA permanent.
“Instead of a Biden tax hike, I’ll give you a Trump middle class, upper class, lower class, business class, big tax cut.”
Trump also said:
“I will make the Trump tax cuts permanent. You know they expire in a year. And we will cut your taxes even more than that.”
In a recent CNBC Interview, Oren Cass, leader of the tax-hiking American Compass, named several Republicans he claimed were supportive of his call for higher taxes. But when contacted by the publication The Floridian in response to Cass’ claims, all of the Republicans slapped down the assertion.
Here’s an excerpt from The Floridian:
The Floridian caught up with Sen. Rubio shortly before he flew back to Florida last week, where he scoffed at the idea of raising taxes, affirming his position with a firm “No.”
Rubio questioned the idea of anyone wanting to raise taxes he and many other Republican lawmakers believe led to historic economic growth.
So, Rubio is opposed to raising taxes, but what about other Republicans on The Hill?
We decide to ask a couple more prominent Republican lawmakers—Senator Ted Cruz and Rep. Byron Donalds—about the possibility of raising taxes.
When asked if he was in favor of raising taxes. Rep. Donalds said, “Well that’s stupid. It would be a detriment to the economy.”
We then told him that there is a belief that a group of Republican lawmakers support raising taxes, including business taxes, Rep. Donalds said that if there were, he wasn’t “one of them,” adding that the Trump tax cuts were the “Best tax policy this nation’s ever had.”
“That is a dumb policy(raising taxes), common sense does not live on Capitol Hill,” added Donalds.