By LISA MASCARO and SEUNG MIN KIM
WASHINGTON (AP) — After musing publicly and privately with the idea of raising the top tax rate for wealthy millionaires as Republicans draft his big bill in Congress, President Donald Trump early Friday backed off that call — sort of.
Trump posted on social media that hiking taxes on anyone, even the rich, could stir a political backlash, reviving the “Read my lips: No new taxes” warnings of the Bush-era that helped topple a president. The post came days after he floated the idea of higher taxes on those single filers earning $2.5 million and above.
But this time, the president, didn’t completely discourage GOP lawmakers from pursuing that option as they rush to finish their massive tax breaks and spending cuts package this weekend.
“The problem with even a ‘TINY’ tax increase for the RICH, which I and all others would graciously accept in order to help the lower and middle income workers, is that the Radical Left Democrat Lunatics would go around screaming, ‘Read my lips,’” Trump wrote.
“In any event, Republicans should probably not do it, but I’m OK if they do!!!” Trump wrote Friday.
The last ditch-push by the president comes as Republicans are laboring to push his “big, beautiful bill” toward public hearings next week, on track for a House vote by Memorial Day. Divisions run strong in the party, and the president’s on-again, off-again push for millionaires taxes complicates the outcome.
Over the past months, Trump has repeatedly brought up the idea of imposing a higher rate for millionaires and the president revived his request in private talks.
Trump told Speaker Mike Johnson again this week he wants to see a higher rate on the wealthy in the big bill coming from Congress, according to a person familiar with the conversations and granted anonymity to discuss the private talks.
The president sees higher taxes on millionaires as a way to clip the argument coming from Democrats that the GOP’s big tax package only benefits his wealthy friends, including billionaire Elon Musk, the person said.
Thanks to Trump’s 2017 tax cuts bill, the top rate is now a 37% bracket that expires at the end of the year. That rate is for incomes beyond about $600,000 for single filers. Trump would like to see that rate expire, reverting back to 39.6%, or 40%.
This week Trump pitched top rate on incomes of around $2.5 million for individuals and $5 million for couples.
The debate over millionaires has been raging with a robust collection of anti-tax activists led by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist at Americans for Tax Reform and others working vigorously to prevent any tax hikes.
Trump appeared Friday to have again heeded the message from Gingrich, who has warned that George H.W. Bush during the 1988 presidential campaign pledged to not to implement any new taxes as president.
Bush then faced an onslaught of criticism during his unsuccessful 1992 reelection campaign for breaking that promise. Trump posted a few weeks ago that Gingrich was correct. But on Friday the president said independent candidate Ross Perot had caused Bush’s loss that year.
As the conversations swirl in public and private, they keep coming back to Trump’s own politically-populist instincts, touching off the GOP divide.
“I’m not excited about the proposal, but I have to say, there are a number of people in both the house and the Senate who are,” said Sen. Mike Crapo, the GOP chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said earlier this week on the Hugh Hewitt show, “and if the President weighs in in favor of it, then that’s going to be a big factor that we have to take into consideration as well.”
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