Trump hits the road again to sell undisclosed GOP tax-reform plan

WASHINGTON — Last week, President Donald Trump, traveled to Springfield, Missouri, to sell to the public on a GOP tax reform plan that has yet to be written, or at least unveiled. On Wednesday, Trump was at it again.

A White House senior official told reporters to expect speeches pushing the plan “almost every week.” Thus Air Force One carried Trump and his entourage to North Dakota so the president could address 700 invited guests at the Andeavor Refinery in Mandan.

Trump used the event to sell his plan, though its details are still to be determined. Overall, it calls for a simplification of the tax code and lowering personal rates, especially for the middle class, by raising the standard deduction, among other changes, and lowering business taxes to about 15 percent.

Some critics have charged that Trump did not do all a president can do to sell measures to repeal President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, and so it failed. When it comes to tax reform, the administration seems determined to give critics no pretexts on that score.

As most presidents like to do, Trump traveled to a state he won — in this case, overwhelmingly. Trump won 63 percent of North Dakota’s votes in November, giving him a 36 percentage point margin over Hillary Clinton.

Like Missouri, North Dakota has a Democratic senator up for re-election in 2018 — and Trump wants her vote for the GOP tax plan. He used the carrot for one senator, and the stick for the other.

Trump told supporters in Missouri to urge Sen. Claire McCaskill to support tax reform. “And if she doesn’t do it for you, you have to have to vote her out of office,” he said.

Trump used a very different tack with North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. He invited her to join him on Air Force One and she accepted.

He even invited her to join Republican officials he had summoned to appear with him on stage. “Everybody’s saying, ‘What’s she doing up here?’” he joked. “But I’ll tell you what. Good woman, and I think we’ll have your support, I hope we’ll have your support.”

For the moment, Trump was free to bask in bipartisan bonhomie. Earlier in the day, he had cut a deal with Democratic leaders to fund hurricane relief efforts in Texas and Louisiana, raise the debt limit and continue federal spending for three months.

Carrot used, Trump returned to the stick, as he told the crowd to turn out any Democrats who obstruct his plans.

The left-leaning Center for American Progress did not share the love. Before the speech, the group noted, “Today, Trump has already tweeted a major falsehood about the U.S. tax system, calling the United States the ‘highest taxed nation in the world.’ The United States actually has relatively low taxes.”

Politifact rated that line false in May and included a chart that showed U.S. taxation as a percentage of GDP to be below the average by three measures among nations surveyed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Trump repeated that line during his speech Wednesday.

Scott Greenberg of the right-leaning Tax Foundation noted that Heitkamp’s presence “signifies there are at least a couple of Democrats in the Senate who are open to signing onto a tax package.”

Democratic pollster Paul Maslin said Democrats have nothing to fear from Trump, as “he’s the most unpopular president in the history of politics at this stage in the game.”

As for Heitkamp’s participation, Maslin mused, “Go with him. Why not? It’s Air Force One.”

Maslin would not count out the possibility of the Democratic senator supporting the tax bill. “If it’s tax reform that’s just perceived as giveaways to the rich,” he said, no Democrat should support it. But “it really comes down to what the bill is,” he said.

Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on Twitter.