Trump touts tax reform plan as ‘pro-American’

In op-ed for Journal Sentinel, he says proposal will bring jobs back

In a Labor Day op-ed submitted to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, President Donald Trump called on Congress to pass a tax reform plan that is “pro-growth, projobs, pro-worker and pro-American.”

The president wrote that lawmakers of all parties should “unite in the name of common sense” on the issue.

Tax reform is the GOP’s chief legislative mission for the remainder of this year and comes with acute political urgency — shared by Trump and congressional Republicans — because of the party’s failure to pass a health care bill.

The Journal Sentinel op-ed follows the president’s speech on the issue in Missouri last Wednesday, calling for corporate and income tax cuts that he said would spur economic growth.

In Monday’s op-ed, Trump wrote:

“Our plan will dramatically reduce income taxes for American workers and families. It will nearly double the standard deduction to help families get ahead. It will make our complex tax code more simple and fair. It will put money back into the pockets

of the people who earned it. And it will bring back American jobs by making our businesses competitive once again.”

The president’s opinion column was submitted specifically to the Journal Sentinel. A White House spokesman explained that by calling Wisconsin “the heartland of America” and saying, “local and regional media tend to spend more time discussing the issues that are of greater concern to American families such as jobs and taxes.”

Trump’s aides contacted the newspaper over the Labor Day weekend to submit the op-ed. Wisconsin was one of the states that were critical to Trump’s Electoral College victory last fall but where his approval ratings are languishing now as they are nationally.

In an August poll by NBC/Marist, only 34% of registered voters in Wisconsin approved of the job the president is doing.

But the state has received more than its share of attention from Trump. The president held a White House event in July to laud plans for a giant Foxconn plant here and has visited several times since the campaign.

Trump cited his April 18 trip to Kenosha in the op-ed.

“Earlier this year, I traveled to Wisconsin to sign the Buy American and Hire American executive order. With that action, we sent a powerful signal to the world that we are going to defend our workers, protect our jobs and put America first,” he wrote.

The president, who has not laid out a detailed tax proposal, wrote in the op-ed that “I want to work with Congress on a plan that is pro-growth, projobs, pro-worker and pro-American.”

As he did in Missouri last week, Trump framed his tax agenda in populist and nationalist terms, arguing that high business tax rates have been a “disaster for American workers” and saying his administration has adopted an “American” economic model. Trump said his approach would benefit workers and middle-class Americans as well as businesses — a claim Democrats and some economists dispute, saying the benefits would go largely to wealthier Americans.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York called it a “boon for the rich” under a populist veneer.

Trump wrote in his oped:

“It’s time for Congress to provide a level playing field for our workers, to bring American companies back home, to attract new companies and businesses to our country, and to put more money

into the pockets of everyday hardworking people.”

Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan, the House Speaker, appeared before the Journal Sentinel editorial board Friday, broadly describing a GOP tax overhaul that includes shrinking the number of tax rates from seven to three, maintaining deductions for charitable donations and mortgage interest, doubling the standard deduction, but potentially doing away with the deduction for state and local taxes.

Like Trump, Ryan also wants to lower the corporate tax rate, though it’s not clear if Republicans in Congress will support lowering it as much as the president would like (from 35% to 15%).

The details remain a political and policy challenge for the party, and GOP lawmakers and the White House are still negotiating over the plan that will be presented to Congress.