USA TODAY International Edition
Cohn: People don’t care if rich get richer
Downplays how tax plan affects Trump
WASHINGTON Top economic adviser Gary Cohn rebuffed questions about whether President Trump’s tax plan would benefit the wealthy — and insisted that Americans only care about their own tax bills, not the president’s.
At a White House briefing Thursday, reporters asked Cohn why Trump promised that wealthy Americans such as himself would not benefit from a tax plan that — in reality — could actually net him and his family millions of dollars in savings.
Cohn refused to repeat Trump’s Wednesday claim that the wealthy wouldn’t benefit. Instead, he said U.S. taxpayers only care about their own pocketbooks.
“What the American people are concerned about is their financial position ... (and) how much do they get to keep versus how much they send the government,” Cohn said. “A typical family earning $100,000 with two children ... they can expect a tax cut of about $1,000. That’s where we’re headed.”
As he unveiled his new tax plan in Indianapolis on Wednesday, Trump said that there is “very little benefit for people of wealth” in his new plan.
After Trump’s speech, multiple news reports outlined the possible ways in which the wealthy and Trump stand to substantially gain from the proposed plan.
The benefits to the wealthy will ultimately come out of Social Security and Medicare, said Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate tax-writing committee. “What they give with one hand, they just take away with the other.”