Trump enlists Democrats’ help to craft bipartisan tax legislation
President’s effort comes hours after trashing party
WASHINGTON — Hours after proclaiming on Twitter that Democrats are interested only in increasing taxes, President Donald Trump on Wednesday told a group of senators that he wants Democrats’ help in cutting taxes.
“The president made clear his preference for a bipartisan bill,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said after emerging from a closed-door meeting at the White House with Mr. Trump that included both Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee.
“We’re going to give this a try and do the best we can,” said Mr. Cornyn, the panel’s chairman.
After the meeting, the White House released a statement that said, “The Administration looks forward to continued opportunities to reach across the aisle in an effort to provide tangible quality of life improvements for the American people.”
Wednesday afternoon’s conciliatory tone contrasted with Mr. Trump’s posts on Twitter early Wednesday morning. “The Democrats will only vote for Tax Increases. Hopefully, all SenateRepublicans will vote for the largest Tax Cuts in U.S. history,” the president wrote.
Mr. Trump has both courted and browbeaten Democrats in recent weeks as he seeks support.
In a bid to rally public support for his plan, Mr. Trump has staged events in states — Pennsylvania, Missouri, North Dakota and Indiana — that he won in last year’s election and where a Democratic senator is on the ballot next year. Behind the scenes, however, Democrats have said their attempts at serious negotiations on compromise legislation have received only a tepid response.
Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans are working on a plan that would slash the corporate tax rate and simplify taxes paid by families and individuals. It also would eliminate the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax, changes that would primarily benefit upper-income earners. Many key decisions have not been made, such as what tax rates wouldapply to certain income brackets or whether the wealthiest Americans would be subject to an even higher tax rate. They also have not decided whether multinational companies that bring money back to the U.S. will have to reinvest any of it in their workforce, among other things.
Though Mr. Trump and Senate Republicans expressed an openness to working with Democrats during the meeting, some Democrats came away from the gathering saying the outreach lacked substance, according to one aide who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Mr. Trump did not commit to make any changes that would scale back tax benefits for the wealthy, which has long been a demand for Democrats. Instead, Mr. Trump said Democrats had political incentives to get behind the plan, saying toward the end of the meeting that he wouldn’t want to be a Democrat in 2018 or 2020 who voted against a tax cut plan.
During a briefing Wednesday afternoon, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters the strategy is “pretty simple": to get enough votes to pass a bill.
Asked whether Democrats are key to that equation, Ms. Sanders said “we’d love to see them get on board.”