
Now the Trump administration is claiming it has no choice but to cut taxes for the rich.

When Donald Trump first pitched his scheme to give tax cuts to the ultra-rich, he swore up and down that it would benefit only the middle class.

“I’m doing the right thing, and it’s not good for me. Believe me,” he said at his speech in Indiana.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who helped Trump craft his proposal, echoed this line, promising “there would be no absolute tax cut for the upper class” — a promise dubbed the “Mnuchin Rule.”


But in a new interview with Politico, Mnuchin has admitted that's a lie.

"When you're cutting taxes across the board," he said, "it's very hard not to give tax cuts to the wealthy with tax cuts to the middle class. The math, given how much you are collecting, is just hard to do."

No one ever said we had to cut taxes “across the board.” The country's millionaires and billionaires — like Mnuchin and Trump — don't need any more handouts from the government. Why not simply cut taxes for the middle class and leave it at that, like President Obama did? Recent “across the board” tax cuts have been something of a disaster, as in Kansas, where a similar tax scheme has bankrupted and destroyed the state.

If Trump and his team thought health care was “complicated,” they are in for a nightmare on taxes. The fact that the prospect of fulfilling their one big promise to the American middle class is already too “hard” is a sign they are not cut out to lead.