Trump’s Tax Leadership

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

A glimpse of President Trump’s modus operandi is afforded by his decision to gather the Republican legislators so he could thank them for their role in passing the pro-growth tax cuts that will now going into law with his signature. Many of the congressmen and women had been working on tax reforms for years. “I want,” said Mr. Trump, gesturing to the scores who worked on the bill and were gathered on the White House steps, “to have them come up and get the glamor and the glory.”

This generosity of spirit is a feature of Mr. Trump’s leadership that one rarely sees acknowledged in the Democratic Party papers and contrasts with his gruff reputation. The event disclosed, en passant, that Mr. Trump has had a remarkable working relationship with a number of members of Congress have have not shrunk from criticizing his occasional breaches of etiquette or political correctness. Or have chafed at policy differences.

We think of Senators Murkowski, Collins, and Scott, to name but three. He could have given a nod to the economists who kept the cause of tax reform alive through the Obama years (and even further back). We think of, say, Professor Laffer, Stephen Moore, and Lawrence Kudlow. (In a column that appears in the Sun, among other places, Mr. Kudlow has probably written a million words in support of pro-growth tax cuts for both business and individual payers.)

Our impression is that the president has earned their respect, which is all the more remarkable because he has never put himself forward as a policy intellectual. And also because none of the economists we have talked with about Mr. Trump has ever played the role of yes man or yes woman. Mr. Kudlow has made it clear all along that he, like Steve Forbes, favors a lower and flatter individual rate, to name but one issue that has vexed this debate.

The Democrats are already predicting that the GOP will rue the day it ever got behind these reforms (and veterans of their fight for Obamacare know a thing or two about ruefulness). It’s no small thing that not a single Democrat found it within him or herself to side with the taxpayers and job-seekers of this country. Then again, too, Hillary Clinton failed to show in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

The Wall Street Journal greeted Mr. Trump’s tax triumph with an important editorial on how the next targets for reform are the high-tax states, such as our own New York. We would add the question of monetary reform, which is, or ought to be, still alive in the Senate. None of the work that lies ahead detracts from the tax triumph enacted today. The climate accord, Iran deal, Jerusalem embassy, military build-up, deregulation — one by one, Mr. Trump is making good on the promises of his campaign, a testament to the leadership we saw come to fruition on taxes today.


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