President Trump said Monday his 2017 tax overhaul is working as intended, dismissing carping from Democrats and pointing to a strong jobs picture and bigger paychecks as evidence.
But he warned in a speech in Minnesota that the progress could be undone if voters abandon him in 2020 in favor of a far-left rival.
“All socialism is a method of going into the poor house,” Mr. Trump told Minnesotans, who backed Hillary Clinton in 2016 but whom the Trump campaign figures it might be able to swing in the next election.
The president said state residents were saving $5 billion on their tax bills from “across the board” cuts that will reach about 4 in 5 Americans. Still more are seeing pay raises, he said, while 401(k) statements have families beaming.
He said the only way to keep the boom times rolling is to reelect him.
Otherwise, “everything we have done can be undone, and bad, bad things can happen,” he said at Nuss Truck and Equipment in Burnsville, Minnesota.
The tax cuts are Mr. Trump’s biggest legislative accomplishment. The $1.5 trillion package cleared Congress on the strength of GOP votes in December 2017, trimming individual rates, doubling the standard deduction, and slashing the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent.
Taxpayers felt its first effects over the course of 2018, and into the filing season that ended Monday.
Democrats say Mr. Trump oversold his law as “rocket fuel” for the economy, as corporations used stock buybacks to boost shareholders instead of growing their businesses. They pointed to polls that say filers perceive the law as benefitting the wealthy or corporate interests, or say filers were taken aback by smaller-than-expected refunds, even though their tax bills were smaller overall.
Mr. Trump hit back during his Tax Day visit, saying the final verdict was rendered in a New York Times headline reading, “Face it, you probably got a tax cut.”
The White House’s Council of Economic Advisers also says the economy saw a boost, despite the naysayers.
“We just had a year where we had 3% growth,” CEA Chairman Kevin Hassett said in a web video.
Yet Mr. Trump railed against countries that impose hefty tariffs on products they ship to the U.S., and said the Federal Reserve snuffed out his hopes for a super-charged economy by raising interest rates last year.
“Quantitative tightening was a killer, should have done the exact opposite!” tweeted Mr. Trump, who recently floated two nominees to the Federal Reserve — Stephen Moore and Herman Cain — who are ardent supporters of the president. Senate Republicans say they’re especially cool to Mr. Cain, however, putting his prospects of confirmation in doubt — and raising the possibility he’ll withdraw.
Some say Mr. Trump himself is to blame though for Americans’ confusion over the tax cuts.
In the run-up to last year’s congressional elections the president focused on migrant caravans and other immigration issues, instead of the soaring economy. Democrats rode a massive surge of support to take control of the House.
Mr. Trump’s focus continued to be split Monday, as he decried special counsel Robert Mueller, defended his policies at the southern border and inflamed his spat with Rep. Ilhan Omar, whose Minnesota district is the adjacent the one he visited Monday.
Democrats say his attacks are endangering the freshman congresswoman. But Mr. Trump sees her as a useful foil, as he tries to make inroads in the upper Midwest state after his narrow loss to Mrs. Clinton in 2016.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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