Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
It is hard to believe that it has been 31 years since Ronald Reagan achieved tax reform and reduced taxes. Recently, President Trump jump started a national campaign to reform and reduce federal income taxes. This campaign to promote his bold tax reform plan came to Pennsylvania last week. I applaud him for tackling this important issue head on — we need it now more than ever.
President Trump has presented a consistent message since day one of his presidential campaign: far too many Americans are struggling to find jobs, too many Americans have gone years without an increase in wages, and too many American business are being strangled by our broken tax code.
If you recall, Ronald Reagan’s bold tax cuts brought 4 million jobs in 1983, the first year they were put into place, and our economy grew by an average of 4 percent for the next seven years.
Correctly, President Trump has highlighted that if we grew our economy at a rate of 3 percent per year rather than the anemic 2 percent per year for the next decade, our nominal GDP would be $16 trillion higher than our current path. To that end, federal revenues would increase $2.9 trillion, paving the way for tax cuts and/or debt reduction. Additionally, our American workers would see an increase of $7 trillion in salaries and wages.
Under the previous administration, job creation and economic growth suffered. However, with President Trump in the White House and GOP majorities in Congress, we now have an historic opportunity to erase the mistakes of the past 8 years and implement a real pro-growth agenda. I’m encouraged that President Trump’s plan reduces the corporate tax rate to 20%, 2.5% below average of the industrialized world. Our current tax rate is — astonishingly — 19 percentage points higher than the developed world’s average — this is unacceptable. President Trump is fully-committed to putting more money back into the wallets Americans by doubling the standard deduction for individuals from $6,000 to $12,000 and for married couples from $12,000 to $24,000. American individuals and families will also get to keep more of their hard-earned money under President Trump’s plan by shrinking the current seven brackets into three: 12%, 25%, and 35%.
President Trump’s plan is a great deal for American taxpayers and for the fiscal health of our nation.