These conditions aren't so serious to stop him
from giving $100 billion more in tax cuts to the richest 1%
By for Common
Dreams
Veterans take another big hit from Trump |
President Donald
Trump told Bloomberg on
Thursday that he is considering a regressive and
possibly illegal plan to use his executive power to hand the
rich another $100 billion in tax cuts by indexing capital gains to inflation.
"There are a lot of people that love it and some people that don't," Trump said of the plan, which would disproportionately reward the top 0.01 percent of Americans. "But I'm thinking about it very strongly."
Trump's Oval Office interview with Bloomberg came shortly after the president announced in a letter to congressional leaders that he is freezing a planned 2.1 percent pay increase for federal workers just ahead of Labor Day, claiming that "federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases."
But
for Trump and the Republican Party, concerns for "fiscal
sustainability" are quickly dropped when it comes time to deliver major gifts to the
rich, Wall Street,
and the Pentagon.
"Hours after cheating millions of middle class workers, Trump wants to
send another kiss to the rich—unilaterally, without any approval from
Congress," Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) wrote on
Twitter late Thursday.
"He ignores the law, governs for the top one
percent, and doesn't give a hoot about the rest of us."
In
a Facebook post responding
to Trump's decision to cancel federal employees' pay raise—which was set to
take effect in 2019—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote that Trump is once again
"making it clear he has no interest in supporting working people."
"Trump
himself has pocketed millions over the years grifting off of taxpayers, but now
he wants to make it harder for workers to get ahead," Sanders added.
"Trump and his Republican friends in Congress didn't have
any problem finding $1.5 trillion in tax giveaways for the wealthiest people
and hugely profitable corporations, but suddenly they don't have enough money
to pay fair salaries to hardworking public servants."
Indexing
capital gains to inflation—a move that the Trump White House
has been considering for weeks—would primarily benefit the richest
Americans, given that millionaires pay the vast
majority of capital gains taxes.
According to the New
York Times, 86 percent of the benefits of this change in tax policy would go to the top
one percent.