Tuesday, May 13`, 2025
Year : 2, Issue: 37
HuffPost: House Republicans on Monday released a draft of President Donald Trump’s tax agenda that includes tax breaks on tips, on overtime and on car loans — but they notably left out his proposed tax hike on millionaires.
Trump and some voices within his “Make America Great Again” movement flirted with the idea of a millionaire tax hike as a way to help pay for the rest of the tax cuts and also to undercut Democratic talking points about Republicans coddling the rich while cutting benefits for the poor.
Specifically, the White House said last week that Trump was considering support for a 39.6% tax rate on incomes above $2.5 million. The highest marginal tax rate in the text unveiled Monday is 37%. The bill would mostly just extend and entrench the temporary household cuts Trump enacted in his first term, with some of Trump’s campaign pitches sprinkled in.
The tax cuts are the core part of what Republicans are calling their “big, beautiful bill,” a massive piece of legislation meant to encompass the president’s second-term domestic policy agenda. The bill faces an uncertain fate amid strong Republican infighting in both the House and Senate.
After warning for years about the evil of budget deficits, Republicans have struggled to come up with enough spending reductions to offset the deficit impact of the tax cuts, with moderates objecting to harsh changes to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Trump’s proposed tax hike could have brought in hundreds of billions of dollars, potentially giving Republicans more budget room, but Capitol Hill leaders like House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) never expressed much openness to the idea.
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment on the draft legislation.
