Trump Starts Tax Reform Push With Threats, Few Details

"We're here today to launch our plans to bring back Main Street by reducing the crumbling burden on our companies and on our workers," CNN quotes President Trump as saying Wednesday. Trump officially started his push for tax reform with a speech in Missouri that mostly stuck to broad strokes and avoided any policy details. In general, Trump said he wants a tax code that is simpler and more competitive, to help the middle class, to bring back offshore profits, and to lower to the business tax rate to 15%. Politico reports Trump said he wants to let Americans "take home as much of their money as possible." "They'll keep their money, they'll spend their money, they'll buy our product," the president said Wednesday.

Trump also showed he isn't above threats to get tax reform passed. "I don't want to be disappointed by Congress. Do you understand me?" CNBC quotes Trump as saying, in apparent reference to lawmakers' failure to repeal ObamaCare. He also told Missouri residents to vote out Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill if she doesn't back his plan, whatever it ends up being. "If she doesn't do it, we can't do this anymore," he said. It appears unlikely Democrats will support the eventual Republican tax reform plan, which Trump is scheduled to hammer out with lawmakers next week. Despite Trump's claims it will be good for lower- and middle-class Americans, independent tax experts looked at Trump's proposals from the campaign and found them likely to benefit the richest Americans. (More tax reform stories.)