WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday he was \u201cOK\u201d with raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, as his fellow Republicans consider scaling back the scope of the ambitious tax-cut package they aim to pass this year.
\n\u201cRepublicans should probably not do it, but I\u2019m OK if they do!!!\u201d Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform.
\nSpeaking to reporters later at the White House, Trump gave a stronger endorsement.
\n\u201cI would love to do it, frankly,\u201d he said in the Oval Office. \u201cWhat you\u2019re doing is you\u2019re giving up something up top in order to make people in the middle income and the lower income brackets save more. So it\u2019s really a redistribution, and I\u2019m willing to do it if they want.\u201d
\nTrump, a wealthy businessman with properties all over the world, indicated he would be willing to pay more in taxes himself. \u201cI would love to be able to give people in a lower bracket a big break by giving up some of what I have.\u201d
\nThe Senate\u2019s top Republican, John Thune, said he was not enthusiastic about the idea. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to raise taxes on anybody. I mean, we\u2019re about lowering taxes on Americans,\u201d he said on Fox News.
\nTrump\u2019s message comes as US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson weighs whether to reduce the total tax package.
\nJohnson told some House Republicans on Thursday that he is now looking at $4 trillion in tax cuts, rather than an initial $4.5 trillion, according to a Republican aide.
\nRepublicans are also fighting over spending cuts needed to pay for Trump\u2019s \u201cone big beautiful bill,\u201d jeopardizing the goal of making all of the expiring provisions of his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent.
\nTrump privately urged Johnson this week to raise the tax rate and close the carried-interest loophole for Wall Street investors, sources told Reuters on Thursday.
\nThe Republican president suggested an increase to 39.6 percent from 37 percent for individuals earning $2.5 million or higher and joint filers earning at least $5 million, with carve-outs for small businesses, one source said.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019re going to be doing it, but I actually think it\u2019s good politics to do it,\u201d Trump said.
\nSpending cuts to Medicaid and other programs are likely to fall short of a $2 trillion goal over a decade.
\nJohnson and other top Republicans have resisted the idea of raising taxes on the wealthy.
\nBut Representative Andy Harris, who chairs the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, said a higher top tax bracket would help pay for the Trump agenda.
\n\u201cPersonally, I\u2019ve always believed that if we can\u2019t find spending reductions elsewhere, we should look at restoring the pre TCJA tax bracket on million dollar income,\u201d the Maryland Republican wrote on X.
\nTrump views higher taxes on the rich as a way to help pay for massive middle and working-class tax cuts, and to protect Medicaid, the health care program for lower-income Americans.
\nBut the president warned on Friday that Democrats would seize on \u201ceven a \u2018TINY\u2019 tax increase for the \u2018RICH,\u2019\u201d citing former Republican President George H.W. Bush, who lost his 1992 re-election bid after breaking his promise not to hike taxes.
\nTrump and Republican lawmakers have cited the potential extension of the 2017 tax cuts as relief for Americans and an economic boost amid Trump\u2019s tariffs on imported goods.
\nThey have vowed to enact the extension as part of a larger budget bill that would also fund border security, the deportation of undocumented immigrants, energy deregulation and a plus-up in military spending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday he was \u201cOK\u201d with raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, as his fellow Republicans consider scaling back the scope of the ambitious tax-cut package they aim to pass this year. \u201cRepublicans should probably not do it, but I\u2019m OK if they do!!!\u201d Trump wrote in a post …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":80810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80795"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80812,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80795\/revisions\/80812"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}