Cohn: 'The wealthy are not getting a tax cut'

White House economic adviser Gary Cohn insisted Thursday morning that “the wealthy are not getting a tax cut under our plan,” a defense of President Donald Trump’s proposed overhaul of the tax code that contradicts what some experts have said about the plan.

Trump pitched his tax reform plan Wednesday in a speech in Indianapolis, painting it as a benefit to middle-class and working-class Americans. He has long said that his goal is to push the U.S. economy toward 3 percent growth, a rate at which he and other Republicans have said the nation will truly feel the benefits of their policies.


“When we’ve looked at the tax plan, and we’ve looked [at] what it does for Americans, we are very confident that Americans are getting a great deal here. We have also said that wealthy Americans are not getting a tax cut,” Cohn said Thursday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “We have designed a tax cut that is stimulus for the economy, where we are giving tax cuts to middle- and lower-income Americans. We want everyday, hardworking Americans to have more money in their paycheck.”

Despite Cohn’s assurances, Democrats have argued that Trump’s tax plan will indeed benefit the wealthy, an assessment supported by a New York Times examination of the proposal that finds it would not benefit the lower third of Americans, but would provide significant tax relief to the wealthiest in the U.S.

Trump, however, criticized Democrats on Thursday morning, tweeting that "Democrats don't want massive tax cuts - how does that win elections? Great reviews for tax cut and reform bill." But House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) was more optimistic, suggesting in an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box" that at least a handful of moderate Democrats will get on board with Republicans' tax plan and that some have already indicated they might support it.

"We talk to them quite a bit. We actually have a lot of friends on the other side of the aisle and we have constant conversations with them and there are still some moderates left and I would say they like what we're doing. They've talked to us about what their issues and concerns are," Ryan said. "So I really do, at the end of the day, believe that we will probably get some Democrat support because, you know, rather than voting ideology or party line, I think they're just going to vote for their constituents, and they know that this is good. so I do believe at the end of the day, in my heart of hearts, we're going to get some of those votes."

The plan as announced is far from final and is likely to undergo changes as it makes its way through Capitol Hill. Trump has said that the reduction of the corporate tax rate to no higher than 20 percent is nonnegotiable.

Also, it is still unclear how the president’s tax plan would impact the Trump family as well as Trump himself. The president, who amassed a significant fortune as a real estate mogul in Manhattan and reality TV star, would almost certainly benefit from some of his plan’s provisions, according to the Times. But the extent to which he might be advantaged by his own tax proposal is likely impossible to know without a copy of the president’s tax returns, which he has thus far refused to release.

Asked Thursday by “Good Morning America” host George Stephanopoulos if the president’s taxes would be cut under his tax proposal, Cohn dodged the question and instead suggested that the plan would benefit middle-class Americans and would not cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans.