Trump needs to flip issue to reforms
WASHINGTON — Republican strategists say Donald Trump should try to flip the narrative of a damning report that the billionaire might have dodged federal taxes for nearly two decades — all by focusing on tax reform and stoking Republican anti-IRS sentiment.
“He should pound on the issue” of fixing a broken tax code, said GOP strategist John Feehery. “This all points to the need for fundamental tax reform. Hillary is against it. Trump is for it.”
But yesterday Trump’s top surrogates focused on painting the real estate magnate — who declared a $916 million loss in 1995, the New York Times reported — as a business “genius” who cannily gamed the government to legally pay as little in taxes as possible.
“Don’t you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a woman?” said former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” yesterday, adding of Hillary Clinton: “The only thing she’s ever produced is a lot of work for the FBI checking out her emails.”
Trump was spinning it positively himself yesterday, as a sign of his knowledge of the tax code — and what needs to be fixed.
Disdain for the IRS remains high among many Republicans, particularly those who dismiss the agency as little more than an arm of the Democratic Party after its 2013 admission that it targeted Tea Party and other conservative groups’ applications for tax-exempt status for heightened scrutiny.
Members of the House Freedom Caucus, led by Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican and Trump supporter, are pushing an effort to impeach or censure IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, alleging that he has hampered the investigation into the matter.
But tax reform, even amid growing anti-government attitudes that Trump has capitalized on, is a tough issue to move voters not already in Trump’s column.
“The challenge is whether Trump can convince voters that his tax returns are exactly what’s wrong with the tax code,” said GOP strategist Ron Bonjean.
Democratic strategist Matt Bennett said while the anti-government, pro-tax reform message would be a better campaign message than hailing Trump as a business savant, it’s still a long shot.
“Even if you are anti-government, virtually everyone agrees we have to fund our military and there are basic things the country has to pay for,” Bennett said. “Why should the middle class have to pay for it while a self-proclaimed multi-billionaire doesn’t?”