two bankers are selling Trump's tax plan -is congress buying?

[Jacque67 7,328]

Gary D. Cohn and Steven Mnuchin have spent months behind closed doors with Republican congressional leaders sketching the contours of an elaborate and politically difficult tax overhaul that is President Trump’s top priority.

Mr. Trump hopes to jump-start the process on Wednesday, traveling to Springfield, Mo., for a speech calling for large tax reductions and a long-anticipated revamping of the code. But he has largely left it to Mr. Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, and Mr. Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, both new to government, to devise and execute a winning legislative strategy. And their involvement has some conservatives for whom tax cuts are a signal issue deeply concerned.

“They are facing big frustration among policy makers, the business community and investors that there’s been months of inaction, and the perception out there among investors is they don’t think this is going to get this done this year,” said Stephen Moore, a Heritage Foundation economist who advised Mr. Trump during the campaign.

Already, their ambitions have drifted from the president’s original mark: A 15 percent corporate tax rate proposed in April is now likely to move to the 20 to 25 percent range, say two people familiar with the officials’ recent thinking. And a proposed 35 percent ceiling on the highest personal income tax rate could be shelved altogether, leaving the current 39.6 percent cap intact.

For Mr. Cohn and Mr. Mnuchin, quiet competitors since their days as new partners at Goldman Sachs more than two decades ago, the task is a consequential test of whether real-world experience in finance has equipped them to carry out a delicate political negotiation, and whether two New Yorkers who have been lavish supporters of Democrats can succeed in Mr. Trump’s Washington.

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“Goldman has thrived by hiring strong individuals with very different backgrounds and putting them together on a team,” Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, said in an email. “Gary and Steven are both steeped in that tradition from their years working side by side on the trading floor — not a bad training ground for the pressure cooker that is Washington.”

Behind the scenes, there have been differences of style and substance.

Mr. Cohn — who wears monogrammed shirts, gold cuff links and a Rolex watch next to a brown leather bracelet with a “peace” tag and a black beaded one with silver skulls — has brought a brash style and a take-no-prisoners approach to the tax issue. He is facile with data and has a keen understanding of the economy, according to people who have attended meetings with him, and he moved quickly to hire several experienced and well-connected aides — including Jeremy Katz, his deputy, and Shahira Knight, a former tax-writing congressional aide — who have been drivers in the private talks with Congress.

But Mr. Cohn has also rankled lawmakers in both parties with comments that they suggest betray a lack of understanding about the political process and the intricate policy trade-offs that undergird a large tax rewrite. In a meeting with a group of Senate Democrats this year, according to people who were present, Mr. Cohn jokingly dismissed concerns about the wisdom and cost of repealing the estate tax, remarking, “Only morons pay the estate tax.”

A source close to Mr. Cohn denied that he had used the word, saying he had been referring to “rich people with really bad tax planning.”

[Jacque67 7,328]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/us/politics/trump-tax-plan-cohn-mnuchin.html

 

let Louise have her hashtags!

[Jacque67 7,328]

A real wag like leona Helmsley. Only the little people.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/04/17/10-notorious-tax-cheats-queen-of-mean-leona-helmsley-proved-little-people-can-put-you-in-jail/

 

drain in swamp! Maga!

[CaliCat 3,957]

Bridges. Bridges for sale everywhere. 

[Jacque67 7,328]

1 minute ago, CaliCat said:

Bridges. Bridges for sale everywhere. 

Well I guess Mnuchin and Cohen are globalists. The alt-right will have something to say about this. Meanwhile Bannon is giving a speech for some Adelson event.