Trump aides sell tax plan with Pinocchio-laden claims
By Glenn Kessler September 29 at 3:00 AM
“The wealthy are not getting a tax cut under our plan.”
–Gary Cohn, director of the White House Economic Council, in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Sept. 28, 2017
“The numbers are about a trillion and a half to the baseline. But more importantly, it’s a trillion dollars to policy, which is the right way of looking at it. We think there will be $2 trillion of growth. So we think this tax plan will cut down the deficits by a trillion dollars.”
–Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, in an interview on Fox News, Sept. 28
In selling President Trump’s tax plan, his aides have resorted to making strikingly misleading statements to defend it.
At the moment, there are few details about the tax plan, only broad strokes. That makes it easier for the administration to make big claims as analysts scramble to try to make sense of the plan’s possible impact. That will be much harder once an actual tax bill is written and the details can be analyzed in depth.
In the meantime, we have a pair of Four-Pinocchio claims that are worth highlighting.
‘The wealthy are not getting a tax cut under our plan’
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‘We think this tax plan will cut down the deficits by a trillion dollars’
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The Pinocchio Test
Though the details of the tax plan are sparse, both Cohn and Mnuchin made statements that are simply false. Of course the wealthy will do well under the tax cut, even if certain deductions are eliminated, and it’s silly to pretend otherwise. And it’s a fantasy to claim that the tax cut will pay for itself – and even reduce the deficit – especially in an economy that already has low unemployment and a booming stock market.
Four Pinocchios
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