Trump talks tax overhaul with advisers, GOP leaders

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump promoted a tax overhaul as essential to boosting economic growth as he huddled Tuesday at the White House with his advisers and the congressional leaders shepherding his push to overhaul the nation’s tax code.

“We’re going to cut taxes,” Trump vowed during a Roosevelt Room meeting with the so-called Big Six tax negotiators — National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell, and the leaders of the congressional tax-writing committees.

Administration officials said before the meeting that they didn’t expect it to produce any major policy breakthroughs, but instead serve as a kickoff to congressional efforts to flesh out the Big Six’s statement of tax principles released in July. Details of a revamp remain scant, with basic questions like where corporate and individual rates will be set unanswered.

Trump stuck to well-practiced talking points when reporters were invited in for a portion of the meeting, repeating admonitions that the tax code should be “as simple as possible” and that a tax cut would produce “millions of new jobs.”

The president is taking his tax sales pitch on the road, traveling to North Dakota on Wednesday to outline why an overhaul is needed and how it would benefit the middle class.

The state, home to Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, is the second time in as many weeks that the president has used his travel to needle a vulnerable Democrat facing a tough re-election battle in 2018.

Last week, Trump made his first major speech on taxes in Missouri, and said if Democrat Claire McCaskill didn’t support his push, “you have to vote her out of office.”

The White House has said that a dramatic cut to the corporate rate is essential to fostering the kind of economic growth Trump promised on the campaign trail.