On the day the Senate moved on long-promised health-care legislation, President Donald Trump signaled his next priority: overhauling the tax code to push corporate rates down and give middle-class taxpayers a break, even if it means some of the wealthiest pay more, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. “The people I care most about are the middle-income people in this country, who have gotten screwed,” President Trump said, reiterating that he wants to bring down the corporate tax rate to 15 percent. “And if there’s upward revision it’s going to be on high-income people.” Sitting behind his desk in the Oval Office, President Trump hopscotched across a variety of policy and personnel topics over the course of the 45-minute interview. The president said his front-runners to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve board of governors early next year would be the incumbent, Janet Yellen, and Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council. Turning to taxes, he echoed some of the populist themes from his presidential campaign. He described twin imperatives in overhauling the tax structure: boosting economic growth and easing the tax burden on middle-class families. “I have wealthy friends that say to me, ‘I don’t mind paying more tax,’” the president said. He added that “we have to take care of middle-income people in this country. They built the country. They started this whole beautiful thing that we have. And we have to take care of them. And people have not taken care of them, and we’re going to.” President Trump’s aides are working with top Republican lawmakers on a proposal that would bring about the first major rewrite of the tax code in 30 years. President Trump and White House officials have been vague on significant middle-class provisions, such as the personal exemption, while promising specific benefits for high-income households such as the repeal of the estate tax and alternative minimum tax.
