As you may have heard, Trump is expected to release his vision for tax reform tomorrow.
That may or may not be news to you, but it was definitely news to his own staff who were reportedly caught off guard by Trump's announcement.
Trump’s declaration to The Associated Press last week that he would release a new tax plan on Wednesday caught senior aides in the White House and at Treasury by surprise and sent them into crisis mode to come up with something new to release.
Before Trump’s remarks, the plan was to work with senior GOP leadership on the Hill to come up with a unified approach in the coming weeks and jointly begin selling that plan to Congress and the public. The meeting Tuesday evening among National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and senior Republican leadership was part of the plan to take a methodical approach to tax reform and differentiate the process from the chaotic and failed attempt to repeal Obamacare.
So much for that.
I must have rewritten the headline for this story half a dozen times because nothing lives up to the truth of Trump. The truth is he's a bumbling fool who can't get out of his own way. Anytime I feel like I may be exaggerating his inglorious presence, I'm proven wrong.
Trump's "plan," whatever it is, will be dead on arrival. And by making this announcement now, rather than working with congressional Republicans to create a unified plan, Trump has set himself up for another failure.
Trump may kill tax reform for good tomorrow with this stunt. He's reportedly going to call for cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 to 15 percent which is actually a bigger cut than Speaker Paul Ryan intends to call for. Trump's plan will also boldly declare that his magical tax cut will pay for itself.
Trump's unflinching need to draw attention to himself by going "big" will sour public opinion against the idea before congressional Republicans even begin holding hearings on their plans.