You might remember that a few days ago Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said that it was hard to avoid giving tax cuts to the wealthy. In an interview with John Harwood, White House economic advisor Gary Cohn said something very similar.
GARY COHN: You’ve got to wait till the whole plan is done and see where we finally end up, and see what the plan comes out. Everything in our tax plan is meant to encourage investment.
JOHN HARWOOD: You’re not saying, as you did a few weeks ago, that the wealthy do not get a tax cut under your plan?
GARY COHN: No. I’m saying there’s unique situations to everyone out there. Everyone has their own story. it’s not our intention to give the wealthy a tax cut.
JOHN HARWOOD: But they’re getting one.
GARY COHN: I don’t believe that we’ve set out to create a tax cut for the wealthy. If someone’s getting a tax cut, I’m not upset that they’re getting a tax cut. I’m really not upset.
So Republicans didn’t mean to give a tax cut to the wealthy. But oops, it happened anyway and he’s not upset about that.
Cohn also said this:
This quote from Gary Cohn is just too perfect: “The most excited group out there are big CEOs, about our tax plan.” pic.twitter.com/1a5u1EoJVQ
— Jeremy Slevin (@jeremyslevin) November 9, 2017
The guy Trump sent out to sell these tax cuts to the public just stated the obvious: corporate CEOs are the people who are the most excited about the tax plan because they are the ones who will benefit the most. Amazing!
But it’s not just people from the administration that are telling the truth about what these tax cuts are all about. As someone said on twitter, other Republicans are “saying the quiet stuff out loud.” For example, there was this from Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY):
.@RepChrisCollins (R-NY) on tax reform: “My donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again.'”
— Cristina Marcos (@cimarcos) November 7, 2017
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said something similar.
Lindsey Graham says “the financial contributions will stop” if tax reform fails.
— Alan Rappeport (@arappeport) November 9, 2017
In summary, we have Republicans admitting that their tax cuts favor the wealthy because they just couldn’t help themselves, the people who are the most excited about the plan are corporate CEOs, and the urgency they feel about getting this done is all about pleasing their donors.
This time folks, they’re not lying.
