Hillary Clinton attacks Donald Trump’s tax plans
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in his office at Trump Tower in New York on Tuesday.
BLACKWOOD, N.J. » Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton attacked Republican Donald Trump’s tax plans today and prodded him to release his income tax returns before the November election.
At a rally to launch her New Jersey primary campaign effort, Clinton told a South Jersey crowd of hundreds of people that Trump’s tax plan was “written by a billionaire for billionaires” and would hurt middle-class Americans.
“I believe we can both grow the economy and have a fairer economy,” Clinton said to cheers from the crowd inside a gymnasium at Camden County Community College in Blackwood, near Camden.
Clinton also prodded Trump to release his tax returns. On Tuesday, Trump told The Associated Press he did not plan to make his returns public before November because he did not expect an Internal Revenue Service audit to be completed by then. He said he would release the documents once the audit is done.
“You’ve got to ask yourself why he doesn’t want to release them,” Clinton said. “We’re going to find out.”
Clinton said it’s “expected” that each party’s presidential nominee will release his or her tax returns publicly. Her campaign website has links to her and husband Bill Clinton’s tax returns for 2007 through 2014.
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Clinton argued that Trump’s proposed tax cuts would add trillions of dollars to the national debt while only benefiting the wealthy. She said the lost revenue would be “enough to make Social Security solvent.”
Trump’s plan, as posted on his campaign website, calls for consolidating the IRS’ seven tax brackets into four, and reducing the highest income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 25 percent.
Trump would cut the business tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, and eliminate federal income taxes for individuals making less than $25,000 and married couples earning below $50,000.
A study by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said Trump’s initial proposal could add an estimated $10 trillion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years.
Clinton has proposed a 30 percent minimum tax rate on individuals who earn more than $1 million, and would raise the estate tax rate by 5 percent, to 45 percent.
A Tax Foundation study said the plan would generate $498 billion in tax revenue over the next decade, but also would “reduce the economy’s size by 1 percent in the long run.”
On Sunday, Trump said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he planned to adjust the plan to “make sure the middle class gets good tax breaks.” He suggested he would raise taxes on the wealthy, saying “it really should go up.”
Facing backlash from Republicans alarmed by talk of a tax increase, Trump clarified his position in a Twitter posting Monday, saying any changes to his plan would “still be lower than current” tax rates.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment about Clinton’s remarks about Trump.
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©2016 Newsday
11 responses to “Hillary Clinton attacks Donald Trump’s tax plans”
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Hilliary is an old school, establishment politician who has never seen an opponent like Trump. But Trump has never seen the wrath of the Clinton machine either. This is going to be an interesting election, but Trump has the right idea of lowering taxes to increase economic activity as a way to counteract the Obama Recession that by all indications is on its way.
Wait a minute, he stated that he would lower the highest tax rate (wealthiest) from 39.6% to 25%. Then he says that the wealthy really should pay more in taxes. And yet, again, he changes position and states that his tax rates would still be lower than the current. He has changed his position so many times that we really don’t know for certain what his plans are except that it will benefit him. Ergo, it will benefit the rich.
I was on the mainland a few days ago as part of a group of investment bankers, investors, and leaders of small and big businesses– all Republicans. The group was formed to explain how disastrous Trump’s policies on immigration, taxes, the national deb, and trade would be for business. Some of the presenters had spoken with Trump staff. It is clear that Trump is getting pressure to change his policies and he is waffling all over the place– from putting a huge burden of increased immigration regulations on business to relaxing it, from building the wall to building an electronic wall, from tax cuts for the rich to tax increases, from cutting Obamacare to expanding it, from cutting the national debt to increasing government borrowing at low rates today, and from forcing american companies to return production and jobs to the US at the expense of the competitive position of the US in world markets and surrendering the value of american businesses to foreign interests in Japan, China, India, and Russia.Trump is an amateur in this area because he knows how to run a single real estte company well, but not a national and world economic power.
Trump should release his taxes when Hillary releases her speeches. And remember when Sen. Harry Reid lied during the last presidential campaign and said Mitt Romney didn’t pay taxes for 10 years… I wouldn’t believe anything Democrats have to say about tax returns.
HRC lied about Benghazi and 4 Americans paid with their lives despite the request for more security prior to the attack. Don’t their lives matter? It saddens me that more truth is not told to us by the media and the lies told to us by the powers that be. It’s as simple as ABC, Anybody But Clinton! Auwe!
Sink or swim? I don’t know. I know we need something better. Hillary is the worse of two evils. Think about it. It can’t get any worse.
hiLIARY would be a continuation of the 8 year NIGHTMARE if elected. #anybodyBUTclinton
What are hiLIARy’s accomplishments? Titles do not count.
Very rich, Clinton poking Trump about his tax returns after taking in millions in “speaking fees” from the rich fat cats on Wall Street and accepting tens of millions in “donations” to her foundation from foreign countries.
What a great, flexible thing the english language is that political influence buying can be made to sound like a lofty, charitable endeavor.
Donald’s desk looks just like mine – very organized.
Don’t any of you above vote? If your sentiment clearly reflects the people of Hawaii, how could any Democrat get elected. I have voted in very election since 1960. Outside of Dan Inouye, I have never voted for the Democrat in any General election. Sometimes I will vote for hopeless Republican candidates or not vote at all in a race. If we can help defeat HRC this year, it would be the highlight of my over 55 years of voting.