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AP FACT CHECK: Tax plan shows 2 things can be true at once - ABC News

posted onDecember 24, 2017
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Article snippet: Two things can be true at once. President Donald Trump's tax overhaul is slanted to the rich, as Democrats say and Republicans like to ignore. It also comes with tax cuts for average people, which Democrats bypass in slamming Trump's "betrayal" of the middle class. Trump's signing of the tax bill into law Friday capped a week also marked by a national security speech in which Trump misrepresented the records of his predecessors in his ceaseless effort to claim achievements that in many cases remain ambitions. A look at statements by a variety of political players over the past week: TRUMP: "The bottom line is, this is the biggest tax cuts and reform in the history of our country. This is bigger than, actually, President Reagan's many years ago." — remarks to reporters Friday. THE FACTS: Not so, in either case. For months Trump has refused to recognize larger tax cuts in history, of which there have been many, or to grant that other presidents have enacted big tax cuts since Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. The White House won't explain how he arrives at his conclusion. An October analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found that it would be the eighth biggest since 1918. As a percentage of the total economy, Reagan's 1981 cut is the biggest followed by the 1945 rollback of taxes that financed World War II. Trump's plan is also smaller than cuts in 1948, 1964 and 1921, and probably in other years. Additionally, a Treasury Department analysis f... Link to the full article to read more

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