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Trump tries to right his campaign, talking of tax cuts

ASSOCIATED PRESS

A demonstrator stands on a chair and yells as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivers an economic policy speech to the Detroit Economic Club today in Detroit.

DETROIT » Promising to “jumpstart America” to a new era of prosperity, Donald Trump announced a revamped economic plan today aimed at revitalizing a stagnant U.S. economy by cutting taxes for workers and businesses. He assailed Hillary Clinton as a candidate who would merely extend a Democratic period of old ideas and weakness.

Trying to move past recent stumbles, Trump proposed a simplified three-bracket income tax system that hewed closely to what House Republicans have recommended, the latest indication the GOP presidential nominee is working to put infighting with his party’s leaders behind him. In a shift from the plan he proposed during the primary season, he increased the tax rate that the highest-earning Americans would pay.

With few exceptions, Trump provided more of a philosophical basis for an economic plan than a series of specifics.

He did spell out proposed tax brackets and called for greater child care deductions for families.

As he called for urgent change away from Democratic policies, he envisioned a nation refocused on manufacturing at home and wary of trade deals abroad — a country bearing little resemblance to the globally focused economy of recent years.

“Americanism, not globalism, will be our new credo,” he said in his address at the Detroit Economic Club. “Our country will reach amazing new heights — maybe heights never attained before.”

Delivering his speech from a teleprompter, Trump was interrupted repeatedly by protesters who stood on chairs and shouted at him before being pulled out of the room by security guards. He did not react harshly as he often has in the past, either quietly thanking the guards or simply powering ahead in his speech.

Only days ago, Trump triggered panic within the GOP when he declined to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan’s re-election or that of other leading Republicans. He sought to put the dust-up to bed Friday by finally backing those candidates while also trying to move past other controversies, like his verbal attacks on a Muslim-American family whose son died fighting in Iraq.

Republicans inside and outside of Trump’s campaign have implored him to shift the conversation back to Democrat Clinton’s perceived shortcomings. Today, he obliged, accusing her of jilting American workers and coming up short on promises to constituents.

“The one common feature of every Hillary Clinton idea is that it punishes you for working and doing business in the United States,” Trump said. He said he wants to “jumpstart America” and added, “It won’t even be that hard.”

At her own rally in St. Petersburg, Florida, Clinton assailed Trump’s plans, arguing they would benefit the rich and do little to create jobs or boost the economy.

“His tax plans would give super-big tax breaks to large corporations and the really wealthy,” Clinton said, suggesting they would push the country into another recession.

She has scheduled her own speech in Detroit later in the week. Her campaign says she will call for the largest investment in jobs since World War II.

Trump focused in part on taxes on U.S. businesses, declaring that no company should pay more than 15 percent of its income in taxes. That would be a major drop from the current 35 percent corporate tax rate, though many companies pay much less because of various deductions. He also called for a moratorium on federal regulations, which he framed as strangling businesses.

As in the House GOP plan backed by Ryan, Trump’s proposal on individual income taxes would simplify the code, which currently has seven brackets, down to three, and lower the top rate to 33 percent after deductions from the current 39.6 percent. That’s a departure from the plan Trump unveiled last fall during the GOP primary that envisioned four brackets and a top rate of 25 percent.

“Now the whole party is unified with a tax message,” said Trump economic policy adviser Stephen Moore.

While Trump had tried to paint his original plan as a boom to the middle class, independent groups concluded it dramatically favored the wealthy and would balloon the national debt by as much as $10 trillion over the next decade. His current plan would also add to the debt, but less.

Moore estimated the revised plan would cost about $2 to $3 trillion over 10 years — but said that number would be offset by cuts to federal spending and other savings. Under the plan, he said, highest-income earners would pay essentially the same amount as they do now because lower rates would be compensated by the elimination of deductions.

Trump did not specify deductions that might be eliminated.

In a new proposal, Trump called for allowing parents to fully deduct the average cost of child care from their taxable income. It’s a theme Trump and his daughter, Ivanka, first introduced during the Republican National Convention, part of an effort to broaden the appeal to Democratic voters and sway women ahead of the general election.

The current Child and Dependent Care tax credit includes caps for qualifying expenses that Trump’s plan would alter, though aides said there would be an income limit for eligibility. Trump said he had been working on the plan with Ivanka and planned to unveil it in the coming weeks, along with new proposals on school choice and funding for police.

14 responses to “Trump tries to right his campaign, talking of tax cuts”

  1. manakuke says:

    No one likes being ‘conned’.

  2. lespark says:

    Great speech. Great plan. He is the Man to do it. Next time ISIS comes calling and you didn’t vote for Trump you got no one to blame but yourself. And, they will come and come.
    No jobs, under employed or unemployed, got laid off, lost your house. Yep, you guessed it, should have voted for Trump.

    • kolohepalu says:

      “He assailed Hillary Clinton as a candidate who would merely extend a Democratic period of old ideas and weakness.” The same “old ideas and weakness” that pulled us out of the economic catastrophe that Obama inherited from Duh-bya. The blue-collar base of the republican party may someday realize that their prejudices are being manipulated by the rich corporate fat-cats that comprise their upper echelon. They are laughing all the way to the bank- and Chump would love to be the engineer of the gravy train going there. Fortunately he further exposes his unsuitability for the presidency on a daily basis.

      • hawaiikone says:

        Expounding on those assertions could we include the continuation of the military globalization that has been the trademark of America’s empire building for decades, which, actually more than anything else, can be held accountable for the backlash we today broadly identify as terrorism? Had we as a nation rejected the fabrications of a desperate defense industrialization community, anxious to create new “bogeymen” after the surrender of the Soviet Union, and instead invested those massive funds here at home as well as in a motiveless continuation of border free philanthropical efforts, we might find ourselves living in a much less divisive nation and world today. Unfortunately, in this area, neither of the leading candidates offers much other than “same o, same o”, whereas Gary Johnson’s advocacy for significant reduction of miltarization is a recipe better served too late than never at all.

  3. CEI says:

    Go Donald, keep talking ups tax cuts. The mention of tax cuts to democrats is analogous to showing Dracula the cross. Hard working Americans should be allowed to keep more of the money they earn to spend in ways they see fit.

  4. klastri says:

    Mr. Trump’s ridiculous plan will further increase the deficit and the national debt. It’s so sad that his pathetic supporters actually believe that Mr. Trump can do almost anything he’s promising. Pathetic.

    The best news of the day is that oddsmakers now have Mr. Trump’s chance of winning at below 4% Mrs. Clinton’s chance of winning is now above 95%.

    “I love the poorly educated!” Go Trump!

    • mctruck says:

      I wonder what Ivana’s qualification’s are that trump would say he and Ivana would work on further tax cut’s, etc.?? Especially since trump is not the sharpest tool in the shed himself; other than being johnny on the spot with bankruptcies.

      • klastri says:

        You are forgetting perhaps that Mr. Trump appears to be psychotic. So when he says that Ivanka is qualified to develop national economic policy for the largest economy on Earth, or is qualified to be a cabinet member (what he said last week – because she is “so popular”) you should view those statements as having come from someone who is profoundly mentally ill.

        That helps explain things.

        • sarge22 says:

          Judicial Watch Investigation Ties Clinton, De Blasio, Billionaire Developer Ratner to ‘New Tammany Hall’ Scandal

          AUGUST 09, 2016
          Email Print Text Size
          ‘The central scam of the new Tammany Hall system would not be unfamiliar to old Tammany’s [George Washington] Plunkitt: public money for private profit.’

          (Washington, DC) – An incisive new expose published today in Judicial Watch’s Investigative Bulletin charges that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, real estate developer Bruce Ratner, and Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton are key players in a “new Tammany Hall” that manipulates billions of dollars of public funds into vast private profits. The report was written by Judicial Watch’s Chief Investigative Reporter, Micah Morrison.

          The report provides a roadmap to how New York City’s controversial Atlantic Yards development project became what Morrison terms “a giant boondoggle generating torrents of cash for well-connected insiders.” Among the highlights of the Morrison piece:

  5. klastri says:

    Folks who write on here suggesting that an ISIS member is in every closet in your home waiting to kill your family, shows the disgraceful cowardice that Mr. Trump is projecting. Mr. Trump himself invented a medical deferment to avoid the draft – he can no longer recall when his serious malady was, of course – so he is betting on the fact that everyone is as fearful and cowardly as he and other Republicans are.

    Thankfully, there are a lot more Democrats in the U.S. than there are Republicans. And Democrats don’t share his personality disorder of fear and cowardice.

    • sarge22 says:

      Orlando shooter’s father attends Clinton rally
      By LOUIS NELSON 08/09/16 12:01 PM EDT Updated 08/09/16 12:20 PM EDT

      The father of the man who shot and killed 49 people inside an Orlando nightclub attended a Hillary Clinton rally in Florida on Monday night, seated on stage and in plain view behind the former secretary of state.
      Wearing a red hat and carrying a small American flag in the breast pocket of his shirt, Seddique Mateen was spotted by WPTV, clearly visible over Clinton’s right shoulder throughout her rally Monday in Kissimmee, Florida. Mateen is the father of Omar Mateen, who shot and killed dozens of people inside a gay nightclub in Orlando in June.

      • mctruck says:

        Photographer who claims recognizing father of shooter, including the father himself are paid operatives of the republican’s.
        Especially since the Clinton Campaign disavows ever inviting him. If you check him out he makes sure that he is very visible to the cameras, looking directly toward the camera, even taking his cap off so there’s no question about his identity.
        I’m sure there will be an investigation into the photographer and shooter’s father connection.

  6. mctruck says:

    trump=Russia=Iran=>Clinton email$$$.

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