Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he is baffled by President Donald Trump's comparisons of the White House tax plan to President Reagan's 1986 tax reform.
Writing for USA Today, the New York Democrat said: "Anyone who remembers the substance and the process of the 1986 Tax Reform Act should be baffled that President Trump has compared his current tax plan to that famous bipartisan bill signed by former president Ronald Reagan."
And he added: "Trump's partisan tax cut bill differs from that one in three major ways: It helps the rich at the expense of the middle class, it would explode the deficit, and it hasn't gone through a thorough, bipartisan process.
"Reagan-era tax reform wasn't designed to completely favor big corporations and the wealthy over the middle class. While the 1986 law lowered the top rate on individuals and businesses, it also expanded the personal exemption and the earned income tax credit. It eliminated corporate tax breaks and actually raised the tax on capital gain."
He noted the bill that arrived on Reagan's desk came after more than two years was spent putting it together by the Treasury Department and a bipartisan group of lawmakers.
In contrast, Trump began his tax reform effort by releasing a one-page summary before White House officials went behind closed doors with fellow Republicans to work out details, Schumer said.
"In 1991, Trump told Congress that Reagan's 1986 tax reform bill has an ‘absolute catastrophe,'" Schumer said. "If Reagan were here today to learn about Trump's tax plan, I think he would return the sentiment."
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