Trump Tests Republican Appetite for Tax Cuts

Former President Donald J. Trump’s costly tax agenda undermines the changes he signed into law in 2017. Some Republicans are wary.

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Former President Donald J. Trump taking the stage at a campaign rally in Atlanta, Ga. on Tuesday.

When former President Donald J. Trump started proposing new tax cuts on the campaign trail, pledging “no taxes on tips” in June, Republicans rallied around his idea. Even Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic rival, copied it.

Four months and half a dozen proposed tax cuts later, Republican lawmakers and aides on Capitol Hill, as well as some economists in touch with Mr. Trump’s campaign, are taking a more circumspect approach. Asked whether they supported Mr. Trump’s proposals, a typical response was: Let’s see after the election.

“I’ll decide what my position is on it once we see what the whole picture is next year,” Senator Michael D. Crapo, an Idaho Republican who could lead the chamber’s tax-writing committee if his party regains control of the Senate, said last month.

The caution is a sign that Mr. Trump’s ideas may be too expensive and outlandish for Republicans in Congress to embrace. The rest of the party had been focused on extending the 2017 tax cuts that Mr. Trump signed into law. Some of Mr. Trump’s recent proposals undercut changes that were made as part of that tax package.

Even if Mr. Trump and his party control Washington next year, Republicans will be in a far different place on tax policy than they were in 2017. Back then, Republicans on Capitol Hill spent years making plans for a tax overhaul, with a focus on cutting the corporate tax rate and simplifying elements of the code.

Once they were in office, they put those plans into motion. Mr. Trump’s general desire to cut taxes fit in with the party’s pre-existing agenda, and conservatives achieved many of their goals with the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

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