Trump Praises Tax Policy He Once Called a Catastrophe

Jonathan Chait: “Donald Trump’s speech touting tax cuts — the largest ones ever, he promised — was devoted in large part to praise of the 1986 Tax Reform Act. ‘Our last major tax rewrite was 31 years ago,’ he said. ‘It was really something special … In 1986, Ronald Reagan led the world, cutting our tax base by 34 percent. Under this pro-America system, our economy just went beautifully through the roof.'”

“Trump has long attacked the 1986 Tax Reform Act as a disaster. The Act eliminated tax advantages for real estate, and Trump naturally equated the loss of special treatment for his own industry with harm for the economy as a whole. ‘This tax act was just an absolute catastrophe for the country,’ he told Congress in 1991. Eight years later, still fuming that Bill Bradley — a co-sponsor of the law — was running for president, Trump called it ‘one of the worst ideas in recent history.'”