Trump tax plan has tight deadline and few details

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration started its public push Monday to overhaul taxes but, just as with health care, the White House lacks a detailed plan to promote to voters.

What it has, instead, is an aggressive deadline.

The White House hopes to have the House pass in October a tax overhaul that the Senate could then approve in November, said Marc Short, the White House director of legislative affairs. Under this plan, President Donald Trump would travel the country to rally support, while conservative activists and business groups act as valuable allies to encourage and pressure Congress into clearing the first major tax code rewrite since 1986.

Short said the strategy comes from lessons learned in the troubled attempts to repeal and replace the 2010 health insurance law signed by President Barack Obama, an ongoing frustration for Trump.

“In the health care battle, there was not an organized effort to bring on board a lot of the conservative grassroots organizations in support,” he said at a panel at the Newseum museum. “But there has been in tax reform.”

The outreach is occurring even though key elements of the tax overhaul are still unknown. Trump and Republican lawmakers agree on broad contours such as the importance of a simpler tax code, a lower corporate rate and financial relief for the middle class, but the details remain murky.

The Trump administration released a one-page set of goals in April, followed by a joint statement last week with congressional leaders.

As of now, the administration can’t say for sure if the tax cuts would increase the budget deficit. It can’t say how large of a break a typical taxpayer would receive. It can’t say how it would prevent wealthy individuals from setting up tax shelters to take advantage of a reduced corporate rate. And while the White House has pushed to reduce the top corporate tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percent, officials can’t say if the rate will end up being that low.

Each of these unknowns could thwart a tax overhaul.

The administration says the effort has universal support from GOP lawmakers.