Audrey Fahlberg writes for National Review Online about a surprising tax idea from Republicans in the nation’s capital.
Among the many “pay for” proposals that White House officials are currently considering is the possibility of raising the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans. One proposal is to raise rates on incomes greater than $626,350 from 37 percent to the Barack Obama-era 39.6 percent. Another option is to create a new bracket for those earning $1 million or more. President Donald Trump has yet to endorse either idea publicly, but he reportedly entertained raising taxes on some of the highest earners during a meeting with Republican senators earlier this month, according to Semafor. …
… The millionaire tax bracket proposal has gained traction with fiscal hawks like Representative Andy Harris (R., Md.), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus who is worried about how the budget blueprint will address spending cuts. “If we slightly increase the rate on the highest earners or create a million-dollar earner bracket that’s a little bit higher than the current highest level, I’d be okay with that,” he said last week.
Nationalist populists are thrilled by the idea. That includes Steve Bannon, a longtime supporter of raising taxes on the wealthy, who served as White House chief strategist during Trump’s first term. For Bannon, hiking taxes for the rich doubles as an effective means of paying for the costly provisions in this year’s reconciliation bill while also delivering a nationalist populist tax plan for working-class Americans. …
… “Republicans in Congress are not committing to not raising the top rate, and that’s making me and a lot of other supply siders very nervous,” says economist Stephen Moore, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former economic adviser to Trump.
Raising rates on the highest earners wasn’t exactly a big theme for Trump on the 2024 campaign trail. Instead, he pledged to make permanent and expand his 2017 tax cuts. …
