Trump Brags About Cutting Taxes for the Nation’s ‘Highest’ Earners

In the final weeks of the 2024 campaign cycle, Donald Trump is closing out his bid to voters with a pitch of economic prosperity. At the heart of the former president's economic message are his claims that his 2017 tax law — the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — brought widespread riches to the average American. But behind the scenes, away from the televised rallies and stump speeches, Trump isn't hiding the windfall his tax code revisions brought to the wealthiest echelons of the country.

In the foreword for Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore 's book, The Trump Economic Miracle: And the Plan to Unleash Prosperity Again — published in late September — the former president specifically brags about cutting taxes for the nation's "highest" earners.

"The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was committed to finding the most damaging parts of our tax code and correcting them," Trump writes, adding that it "cut the highest personal income tax rate from 39.6 to 37 percent."

He further writes that the tax law "identified the most harmful marginal tax rate — our corporate rate was the highest in the world — and I cut it by 40 percent, from 35 all the way down to 21 percent."

Trump notes that he "made capital-equipment expensing immediate," a policy that experts said at the time would benefit oil producers.

Since the Trump tax legislation was first proposed, economists have found that the tax code revisions heavily favored the ultra-wealthy and big corporations. A 2017 analysis by the Tax Policy Center found: "Households with incomes in the top 1 percent will receive an average tax cut of more than $60,000 in 2025, compared to an average tax cut of less than $500 for households in the bottom 60 percent."

The legislation slashed federal revenues , driving up the deficit. That doesn't stop Trump from claiming in the foreword that "my Tax Cuts and Jobs Act actually paid for itself as revenues soared thanks to higher growth and more workers working than ever before." He tells critics to "put that in your pipe and smoke it." Editor's picks

Trump also lauds Moore and Arthur Laffer, who co-authored the book, as his "guiding light when making economic policy decisions."

"I had many advisors and staff working to craft the tax cuts, but the authors of this book, Stephen Moore and Arthur Laffer, were the driving force, along with, of course, my waiting-in-the-wings head of the National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow. Without their knowledge and insight into the American tax code, we'd have never been able to enact the largest tax cut ever," the former president wrote.

Moore is currently serving as an economic adviser to Trump in his 2024 campaign. Laffer, Kudlow, and Moore are all involved in the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a MAGA economic advisory group aimed at furthering the former president's economic agenda.

As Trump prepares to potentially retake the White House in the coming year, Moore has been a driving figure behind some of his most widely marketed economic proposals — as well as those the former president would rather keep under wraps.

According to a 2023 report from The Washington Post, Moore has pitched Trump on once again lowering the corporate tax rate down to a measly 15 percent. The economic adviser is also reportedly behind the bird-brained idea to have Elon Musk, who's leading a pro-Trump Super PAC, run a government waste task force .

Despite Republicans demanding increasingly detailed policy packages from Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump himself has released next to nothing in the way of in-depth plans for a future administration. The closest we have to a comprehensive policy plan is Project 2025, which Trump claims to know nothing about despite significant overlap between the project architects and his own inner circle. Moore co-authored Project 2025's chapter on reforms to the Treasury Department and has begun laying the economic groundwork for a second Trump administration. Related

"I'd like to see some further cuts, but if we could just keep the current tax plan in place – remember, I want to state this again that if Biden wins, automatically he says he's going to cancel all of those tax cuts. And that would be, I think, really negative," Moore told Yahoo Finance in July, ahead of Biden's exit from the 2024 race.

A second Trump administration would be a boon to billionaires and major corporations — and they're flocking to the Trump campaign to make it happen. As previously reported by Rolling Stone , a slew of Super PACs backed by some of the wealthiest magnates in the nation are investing millions in preserving Trump's tax cuts.

In May, Trump reportedly asked a gathering of oil executives to contribute $1 billion to his campaign — promising regulatory rollback and disfavorable policies towards green energy in exchange. According to The Washington Post , Trump argued the money would be worth it given the amount they would save in taxes should he win. Trending

Despite lofty promises of lower taxes for all, the federal government's revenue has to come from somewhere. In order to make up the deficit, Trump has proposed the implementation of a 15-20 percent tariff on all imported goods. Such a penalty would inevitably result in everyday consumers being saddled with increased prices for common goods and necessities. Economists warn that even just a 10 percent tariff would amount to the average American spending an additional $1,700 a year in increased costs. The Harris campaign holds that the 20 percent proposal floated by Trump is essentially a "Trump sales tax," that would "raise prices on middle-class families by almost $4,000 a year."