According to Semafor:
President Donald Trump told Republican senators in private last week that he’s open to raising tax rates on some of the highest-earning Americans, according to three people familiar with the meeting.
Trump’s comments came during a sitdown about his agenda with Senate Budget Committee Republicans and Majority Leader John Thune. After Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked Trump how he’d view a proposal to let taxes increase on the highest earners, the president replied that he’d be fine with that idea, the three people told Semafor. . . .
Yet there are already pockets of potential support in the GOP for higher taxes on upper-income earners. House Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., said in a recent interview that he’d be open to the idea, though he spoke for himself and not the conservative bloc he leads.
“If we slightly increase the rate on the highest earners or create a million-dollar earner bracket that’s a little bit higher than the current highest level, I’d be okay with that,” he told Semafor.
They sound just like Democrats under President Obama. Or like President Obama himself.
If it’s revenue they are looking for, Jack Salmon and I just produced a list of all 170 tax expenditures and sorted them out between the ones to keep, the ones we should repeal, and the ones that could be reformed (though ideally we should abolish them).
There is plenty of money up for grabs to pay for the extension of the tax cuts, lowering the corporate rate to 12 percent, and other such measures. Congress would have to be willing to go against special interests and make the tax code more neutral, fair, and growth-oriented.
Congress could also cut spending or reform entitlements before the trust funds dry out.
But instead, some Republicans want higher marginal tax rates on very productive members of society. I hope they don’t assume this is the path to reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio. This paper I wrote years ago with the late Harvard University’s Alberto Alesina shows that fiscal adjustment packages made mostly of tax increases are a sure way to fail the austerity test.