Republican tax policy used to have the simple goal of lowering rates, eliminating loopholes, broadening the base, and letting people decide how to spend their own money as much as possible.

President Donald Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was largely built on that principle. It lowered individual income tax rates, nearly doubled the standard deduction, cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, and paid for some of those reductions by eliminating or limiting deductions and other tax preferences.