President Trump teased a second iteration of tax reform in a clip from a new interview released Friday, hinting it could include provisions that further reduce the corporate tax rate.
“We’re doing a phase two, we’ll be doing it probably in October, maybe a little sooner than that, and it’ll be more of a middle class,” Trump said during a pre-taped interview with Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “We did a lot for the middle class, but this will be even more aimed at the middle class. One of the things we’re thinking about is bringing the 21 percent down to 20 and for the most part, the rest of it will go right to the middle class.”
The release of Trump’s comments fall on the six-month anniversary of his signing of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which decreased the corporate tax rate, in addition to removing some deductions and individual tax brackets from the Internal Revenue Code.
Since its introduction in December the unemployment rate has dropped from 4.1 percent to 3.8 percent as more than 1 million jobs were added to the economy, but it’s not clear the extent positive growth can be directly attributed to the tax cuts.
In March, Republican lawmakers started talking more frequently about the prospect of tax reform’s “phase two,” prompted in part by Democrat Conor Lamb’s victory in Pennsylvania’s Trump-friendly 18th Congressional District and the tax code overhaul’s popularity.
But the law’s approval among voters is waning. Only about 36 percent of the public approves of it, while 43 percent disapprove, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls.
