Party will die if too focused on tax rates, Sasse warns

Ben Sasse, a first-term senator from Nebraska, issued the warning while engaging in a Twitter conversation with his followers.

While he said he cares about tax rates because of economic growth and its effects on families, he said, “If a party has marginal taxes as [a] top-three issue, it will die.”

Asked if the same was true for average tax rates, Sasse responded, “Basically the same answer.”

Sasse’s answer is notable because lowering tax rates is one of the few areas of consensus among Republicans.

The vast majority of congressional Republicans have signed a pledge, maintained by the outside conservative group Americans for Tax Reform, not to raise marginal tax rates or net taxes. In the current Congress, 220 House members and 48 members of the Senate, including Sasse, have signed the pledge.

Both congressional Republicans and presidential nominee Donald Trump are running on major reductions in marginal tax rates and tax cuts. Trump’s plan, shaped partly by longtime Republican-aligned supply-side economists, has helped bring some conservatives and Republican donors on board his campaign.

This week, for instance, donor Rex Sinquefield told Yahoo News that Trump’s tax plan was the one reason to support his candidacy. “What Trump is proposing is the right thing: a massive reduction in taxes,” he said.

Sasse, however, said that pleasing donors was not the reason that tax cuts play such a large role in GOP policy. “Short-term thinking from incumbency-obsessed politicians is a bigger problem than the donors,” he said in a follow-up.