Ever given in Lawrence Odonnell teases ever. Thats what youre going to see tonight. All right. Youre going to see that thing that President Trump did today that i agree with word for word. It finally happened on is this day 97 . Dreaming. Get home and watch, that rachel. I will. Thank you, lawrence. Also, as the clock ticks down on the president s first 100 days, if they cant have legislative achievements, at least, at least they can have legislative announcements. And so today was all about taxes, which in the Trump White House always comes back to trump tax returns. This is going to be the biggest tax cut. This is not a plan. This is a piece of paper. Im surprised it didnt come on a napkin at this point. We will let you know the specific details at the appropriate moment. One could argue the rollout of the plan was supposed to be the appropriate moment that you would have some of these details. Its a great plan. Its going to put people back to work. I find it fascinating that blowing this gigantic hole in the debt is not an issue anymore. He is the king of debt, and now were seeing it in realtime. T the people who will get a gigantic tax cut are corporations and very wealthy people, people like donald trump. Will the president release his tax returns the president has no intention. The president has released plenty of information. Ha boy, has he got his talking points down, doesnt he . This will pay for itself with growth. No tax cut has ever paid for itself through growth effect. This is pure magical thinking. You would have to hire David Copperfield to make this work out. So on day 97 of the trump presidency, with the clock ticking towards the 100th day mark without any, any of candidate trumps legislative agendas having been passed by the congress, we have seen a flurry of announcements and paper to give the impression that something is happening. Today the white house tried to deliver something on what candidate trump promised about that big tax cut. It will put people back to work. And that is all that the president of the United States had to say about his big tax plan today. But the treasury secretary arrived for a rare appearance in the White House Briefing room, and he released this piece of paper that rachel was just describing entitled 2017 tax reform for Economic Growth and american jobs. Now some of you might know that i used to write law on the staff of the finance committee where this piece of paper will have to be turned into real legislative language. No tax reform announcement or tax cut announcement in washington has ever been presented with less detail than what the Trump Administration rushed out today. When president reagan announced, Just Announced his tax reform plan, he spoke to the country from the oval office for 21 minutes. Here is just 30 seconds of what president reagan had to say. Now lets take a larger working family, husband, wife, and four children, earning an income of 26,000 a year. Right away under our plan, the value of that familys personal exemptions would be 12,000. Add to this the new higher standard deduction. And if they save a single ira, this family could reduce the amount of income subject to tax by 18,000. On earnings of 26,000, they would pay only 1200 tax. Again, about a effective tax rate of less than 5 . And in that 30 seconds, Ronald Reagan delivered more detail about how his tax plan would affect one class of taxpayer. More detail in that one class of taxpayer than all the details released by the Trump Administration today about its entire plan. President reagan went into more specificity about other classes of taxpayers, including the corporate taxation. And for tax experts and accountants, president Ronald Reagan left out some details they would like to know about. But for voters, its pretty clear you can understand what the president wanted to do. He wanted to see tax rates go down, both personal and corporate. And at the same time reduce or eliminate some deductions so that tax returns would become simpler. And one more thing, and this was the most important guiding principle of reagan tax reform, and the most difficult piece of it to achieve. Its one of the reasons it took a year and a half. The tax reform had to be what they call in washington revenue neutral. Youre going to hear that term a lot in the next few weeks. Revenue neutral. In other words, the tax reform could not reduce the total amount of money that the treasury was taking in. So in real tax reform, reagan tax reform, if you cut an income tax rate, then you have to eliminate enough deductions to make up for the money lost in the reduction of that income tax rate. Thats what tax reform is. If you dont do that part of it, its just a tax cut. We have not had tax reform since 1986 because tax reform is the single most difficult thing you can do with the tax code. We have had tax increases since 1986. Big ones. We have had tax cuts since 1986, really big ones. President george w. Bush ran for reelection on a platform of tax reform and Social Security reform. And both of those are so difficult that george w. Bush did not get even a single hearing on tax reform in the congress, or Social Security reform. Not a single vote was taken in a committee or on the floor in the house or the senate for george w. Bushs tax reform idea. President george w. Bush got absolutely nowhere on tax reform. But he did get that giant tax cut in his first year as president because tax cuts are easy. Everyone wants to vote for a tax cut. Ronald reagan was genuinely concerned with the fairness of the tax code. Now his interpretation of fairness was different from some democrats terms of fairness. But reagan did believe in fairness. And here is one of the ways he proved it. There is one group of losers in our tax plan, those individuals and corporations who are not paying their fair share, or for that matter, any share. These abuses cannot be tolerated. From now on, they shall pay a minimum tax. The free rides are over. And the only way that president reagan and the congress could end those free rides was to actually on this provision make the tax code more complicated. They introduced the alternative minimum tax to prevent people like donald trump from paying no taxes. And we saw how that worked on the pages of Donald Trumps tax returns that were revealed by David Cay Johnston on Rachel Maddows program in march. On that tax form, donald trump paid 31 million in the alternative minimum tax on an income of 150 million. And if the alternative minimum tax were not there, donald trump would have paid only 5 million. In taxes. So sometimes to make the tax code more fair, you do have to make it more complicated. All of that was lost today in a rushed presentation that included no consultation with any democrats. And it will be impossible to legislate a giant tax cut unless democrats vote for it. Because a tax cut that just loses money for the treasury cannot be done under the reconciliation rules of the senate that require only 51 votes for passage. And Ronald Reagan knew he needed democrats. Thats why he consulted with key democrats before he even made that announcement speech that you just saw. He consulted with the democrats about what he was going to try to do and what they thought he should try to do. And he collaborated with them before his announcement. And then he worked with them for a year and a half to get it done. And in the rose garden when president reagan signed the Tax Reform Act of 1986, a year and a half after proposing it, this happened. We must also salute those courageous leaders in the congress who have made this day possible. To bob packwood, dan rostenkowski, russell long, john duncan and bob dole, to jack kemp, bob caston, bill bradley, dick gephardt, who pioneered with their own versions of tax reform, i salute you and all the other members of the senate and house whose efforts paid off and whose votes finally won the day. Dan rostenkowski, russell long, bill bradley, dick gephardt. Ronald reagan couldnt have done it without them. All democrats. Thats how tax reform got done. And thats why tonight there is not a single expert on tax legislation im not talking about accountants now. Im talking about tax legislation. Not people who worked on wall street or covered taxes from wall street. Tax legislation. People who have worked on tax legislation there is not one who can honestly say that they see any way for this piece of paper to become the law of the land. Joining us now, David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize winning tax reporter who founded d. C. Report. Org, a Nonprofit Organization that covers the Trump Administration. Also with us adelson currently works with the center for American Progress action fund. David, there are so many elements to go into here. But of course in the White House Briefing today, one of the very first questions was in effect how does this affect donald trump. Lets listen to this question about the tax returns. Will the president release his tax returns so that the president has no intention. The president has released plenty of information. And i think has given more Financial Disclosure than anybody else. I think the American Population has plenty of information. Let me just finish john carls question for him that the treasury secretary didnt want him to finish. So that we can know how this tax bill affects donald trump. And part of what is astonishing in this, i dont know what to call it. Its certainly not a plan. But one of the things that is astonishing is an interesting thing about the math. The bottom right would be 10 . The next is 5. They would jump to 25. And then when you get to people with really high incomes, they only go up 10 more. If you have a really progressive system it would be 10 to 20 to 25. And donald trump is going to see his rate fall to 15. This is just absolutely astonishing. Part of what i dont understand about this is well, i guess i do understand it. Donald trump at the moment is going to be able to say look what i did. Im proposing the biggest tax cut in the world. It has no chance of happening. What does that tell you about Donald Trumps ability to manage the federal government . Its all bluster and talk. Well, adam, we got word last week suddenly that the white house staff was shocked that the president wanted to make an announcement. He wanted to announce his tax plan this week. And they didnt have one ready to go. So this was understandably the best they could do. I want to put up the tax brackets just to let people look at the current tax brackets. And what would be the trump tax brackets. And notice something about the bottom tax bracket. Theyre both the same. So the lowest earning taxpayers under the trump tax pn get absolutely nothing. There is just massive rewards as you go up that income scale. One more thing about that, as you know, adam, youve seen what people hand out when they hand out real tax plans. The socalled distribution chart that accompanies all real tax legislation. And even at the memo level in washington. And the distribution chart is the part that says this is how it will affect the different classes of taxpayers based on income. Here is how much money will go to the various taxpayers. Here is how much will be taken from the various taxpayers in this thing there is not each a hint that of here. No. I think people are being very generous in calling this a plan. Its talking points. Thats all it is. It doesnt pass the laugh test in terms of seriousness on the hill. You know, as you sort of alluded to, this is something that is going to have to have democratic support. You basically have a page of bullet points that are designed to do nothing but hand out massive giveaways to big corporations in the top 1 . In addition to being completely unserious, i dont see how its viable. David, one of the ways they raised revenue in here, because you have to raise money, even if you dont make it balance you to raise some. One of the items is the elimination of the federal deductibility for state and local taxes. The first time we saw that proposal was in 1986 by president reagan. It was right there in his 21minute announcement they dont have time to show you the whole thing. They couldnt get that through. The opposition to that is enormous in congress that probably wont get through now. And so when you see people coming up with tax bills that include things that have been not just defeated, but just kind of wiped off the map of legislative possibility in the history of that arena, and they say this is one of the crucial elements of our piece, you know. Well, actually, if youre under the alternative minimum tax, and ive been under it almost every year since it took effect in 87, you do lose your state and local deductions. But this plan would leave only two things. Mortgage interests, which drives up the price of housing and therefore is not smart policy. Can i ask you than . Lets say im a big Real Estate Developer and i sell very expensive apartments in places like new york where they have very high mortgages. Would it be in my interest to preserve the mortgage Interest Deduction for the people buying apartments from me . Yes. Because it inflates the price of housing as people try to buy the tax benefit. And the national r50e89s Association Realtors some years ago said for houses over a quarter million, it was about a third of the price you pay. Secondly, if youre a Police Officer or firefighter who has to get your uniform cleaned you would lose your deduction under schedule a, under this trump plan there are a whole bunch of things people would lose. Do you want to say plan . This isnt a plan. This is con artistry. Leer the two words that dont apply, adam. And its the reason i crossed out the word reform. This is not tax reform. You could turn this into that with collaboration, it could come out in tend as tax reform. Its not what it is now. Its a tax cut. And its not plan. Its really hard for those of white house have ever seen what a plan looks like on paper to call this a plan, especially when that item i just mentioned to you, the single biggest deduction elimination thats in there, which is the elimination of state and local taxes, its not actually specified on this piece of paper. The only reason i know it is that the treasury secretary answered a question about it in the briefing i. Thats right. I think the fact that were seeing this plan today has a lot more to do with the fact that its day 98. Were two day away from the 100 day mark, and trump has virtually nothing to show for his entire presidency. I think what he wanted to do is introduce a piece of paper that would generate some headlines for him that said he did something, that he introduced a plan, and it was successful in so far as it did get some of that coverage he wanted. But, you know, this is about him rushing to try and show that he has accomplished something, anything with his first 100 days when he really hasnt. Quick last word. Remember when donald said Hedge Fund Managers and equity Fund Managers are getting away with murder . Yes. This is the murder. He is helping them get away with it. David cay johnston, adam jentles jentleson, thank you both. I really appreciate it. Coming up, youre going to watch this amazing video from this afternoon here on msnbc. Katy tur interviewing a republican member of the house who changes his position on the new the socalled new Health Care Bill in the interview. She just has to say one thing to him, and he flips right there. This is the mustsee tv of the day. Also later, the Senate Intelligence committee has some questions about meetings Jared Kushner had with russians that he forgot to mention on his security clearance questionnaire. Newly advanced gln see in your blind spot. 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