With Donald Trump’s tax plan attempting to make its way through Congress, the attention now falls on Steve Mnuchin.
Steve Mnuchin became the United States’ 77th Secretary of the Treasury on Feb. 13 with a 53-47 vote in the Senate.
Previous to being appointed the Secretary of the Treasury, Mnuchin was brought on Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 where he was named the National Finance Chairman.
Throughout his stay in Trump’s cabinet, Mnuchin has been an extremely vocal supporter of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, also known as Trump’s Tax Cuts. He is also a strong advocate for reducing corporate tax rates.
Mnuchin has become Trump’s right-hand man in attempting to make Republican tax bills go through Congress successfully.
For months on end, Mnuchin has insisted that President Trump’s tax plan would have such a large effect on the economic growth of the nation that it would end up paying itself off.
“I’m not aware of so irresponsible an estimate coming from a Treasury Secretary in the last 50 years,” Former Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers said.
Not only has Summers criticized what Mnuchin has said in regard to the tax plan, but he has also said he estimates 10,000 people will die per year due to the new tax plan, calling it a serious policy error.
In an interview on CNN with Jake Tapper, Mnuchin attempted to defend himself against Summers’ accusations.
“There are lots and lots of economists that come out and support our claims,” Mnuchin said. “And, by the way, we have been completely transparent. Different models will show different things.”
Trump has also gone on to sell the idea of his tax plan to the American people by persistently reminding them that he’s giving the largest tax cuts in the history of the United States.
However, what Tapper and others at CNN have discovered is that if one really examines the plan, specifically regarding tax cuts, it is only the eighth largest tax cut bill. Looking at the bill adjusted for inflation, it becomes the fourth largest. Even looking at it in terms of numbers, it is only the third largest.
Mnuchin then made a relatively lousy attempt at defending the president, and he did not even comment on the fact that Trump has claimed the tax cuts to be the largest in history.
“There’s lots of different ways of looking at it,” Mnuchin said. “This will be the largest change since President Reagan.”
Quite frankly, being the largest change in tax cuts in 36 years is not good enough.
Trump’s plan of having the biggest tax cuts in history does not equate to 36 years of history.
When it all comes together, it becomes apparent that Steve Mnuchin cannot tell the United States the full truth of the tax plan no matter how many times he claims that the administration has been incredibly transparent with the people of the nation.
