WASHINGTON D.C. — White House budget director Mick Mulvaney dismissed critics of the Trump administration’s proposed tax overhaul, saying a detailed analysis wouldn’t be possible until the full plan is crafted.
“I’ve seen the criticisms,” Mulvaney said. “All I can tell you is that no one can make real, detailed analysis of the plan yet because it’s not finished.”
Mulvaney said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the plan that Republican negotiators, including himself, revealed earlier this week was just a framework, adding that President Donald Trump is seeking two main pillars for tax reform. The first, he said, was for the middle class to pay less in taxes and have an easier time filing, and the second is bringing down the corporate tax rate.
Trump “doesn’t really care what happens to the top 1%,” Mulvaney said.
“This really is about the middle class and the corporate tax rate,” he said.
Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, in an interview following Mulvaney, said the White House official was “wrong” to say one couldn’t draw conclusions about the tax plan. He said one analysis showed most of the benefits of the tax plan over time would go to the top 1% of earners, and blasted Trump for saying the plan would not benefit the wealthiest Americans.
“For Trump to go on television and say, ‘Oh, this doesn’t benefit the wealthy’ is absolutely outrageous,” Sanders said. “Of course it benefits the wealthy, and of course it benefits large, multinational corporations.”
An early analysis from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a think tank in Washington, said the top 1% of households would receive more of a tax cut than the bottom 95%.
