As President Biden focuses on his economic vision to deliver relief for hardworking Americans by growing the economy from the bottom up and middle out, investing in America, empowering workers, and lowering costs for families, Republicans running for the highest office in the country are campaigning on a MAGAnomics platform of lining the pockets of the wealthy and big corporations, cutting Social Security and Medicare, and pushing policies that could raise costs for working families.

2024 GOP candidates love Trump’s unpopular tax breaks for the wealthy so much that they’ve pledged to bring back and extend his MAGA tax scam at the expense of America’s middle-class families. 

Washington Post: “Trump and his advisers have discussed deeper cuts to both individual and corporate tax rates that would build on his controversial 2017 tax law, which they see as a major accomplishment worth expanding, according to interviews with a half-dozen people close to the former president, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. … Trump’s advisers, though, have discussed proposals to make deeper cuts to the overall corporate tax rate, potentially to as low as 15 percent, or to use the revenue from the proposed tariffs to pay a dividend to U.S. households.”

Sullivan: “Going back to debts, we hear about we need to raise taxes on the wealthy, we need to raise taxes on corporations. If elected, would you keep personal and/or corporate tax rates where they are? What’s your tax plan?” 

DeSantis: “Yeah, I think we need to — the current rates that are due to expire, we want to keep those rates in place.”

Sullivan: “You keep those cuts going?” 

DeSantis: “Yeah. We don’t want to see increases in taxes, we definitely wanna see things like permanent bonus depreciation, making sure we have full expensing. I think that that’s a really smart thing to do. That’s kind of been eroded over the last few years, but we should do that.”

Sullivan: “What about macro tax policy, governor? The president wants to roll back the top end to where it was prior at 39.6, it’s now at 37. Would you endorse that or would you keep it at the 37% where it currently is?” 

Haley: “Well, I think what I’d like to see is us go back to what Trump had under the tax cuts under him. … I was there.” 

Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly: “Speaking to Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly, Pence said if elected, ‘First thing we’re going to do is make the Trump-Pence tax cuts permanent. They’re due to expire in 2025, and we need a Republican president and a Republican Congress to continue those tax (cuts). The last thing we need in the face of the disastrous economic policies of the Biden administration is to raise taxes on the American people.’” 

Kudlow: “I think you need to make the Trump tax cuts permanent, Vivek, or even build on them, cause you’ve got very important incentives in there.” 

Ramaswamy: “I’d go a little further, Larry, than that to be honest with you. I favor a 12% flat tax across the board.”

Scott: “You think about our economic realities, as I said on the stage today, that 2017 tax reform bill—I was one of the four key authors of that bill. I’m excited about continuing to extend and making permanent those tax cuts.”

Bloomberg: “Christie said he would extend the Trump tax cuts if elected and would keep a cap on state and local tax deductions, known as the SALT cap, which mainly affects residents of high tax states, although he said he might have made it more generous.”

Hutchinson: “​​President Trump’s #SOTU speech was good news for Arkansas as conservative policy changes in D.C. have led to tax cuts.”

Washington Post: “Hurd voted for the 2017 tax cuts, saying they would put ‘more money in the pockets of hard-working Americans.’” 

It goes beyond Trump’s tax scam. Many 2024 candidates have decadeslong records of supporting tax giveaways for the ultra-wealthy and large corporations. 

Seeking Rents: “Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has begun sending out more than $600 million to Florida’s biggest and most profitable corporations. The Florida Department of Revenue said Thursday that the agency has begun distributing what will ultimately total nearly $625 million in corporate tax refunds – thanks to legislation DeSantis signed in 2019 (HB 7127).” 

Augusta Chronicle: “Gov. Nikki Haley insists that South Carolina’s corporate income tax must be eliminated to lure jobs to the state. But the state’s 5 percent tax rate on corporations is already lower than the corporate taxes of its Southeastern neighbors and among the lowest in the nation. Asked why eliminating it would help attract jobs, Haley said the state recently lost a company to Florida, which she said doesn’t have the tax. Actually, Florida’s corporate tax rate, at 5.5 percent, is higher than South Carolina’s. What Florida lacks is a personal income tax.”

Bloomberg: “A New Jersey millionaire’s tax boost that Republican Governor Chris Christie vetoed five times will be Democrats’ top priority with their party newly in control of the executive branch, said the highest-ranking state lawmaker. Governor-elect Phil Murphy, the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. multimillionaire who defeated Christie’s lieutenant, Kim Guadagno, on Tuesday has vowed to enact the increase. With that revenue, plus higher corporate taxes and fees from plans to legalize marijuana sales, the strapped state budget will gain $1.3 billion, Murphy has said.”

“The top 1 percent of earners—about 17,000 residents—provide about 40 percent of the state’s income-tax revenue, according to the New Jersey taxation division. The provision vetoed by Christie would have increased the tax rate on income above $1 million from 8.97 percent to 10.75 percent. That would raise as much as $615 million in annual revenue, according to the state office of legislative services.”

Arkansas Times: “Updated state income tax figures illustrate further how Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s preferred income tax cut plan would favor the rich. The state last week said a plan preferred by Hutchinson to streamline tax tables, change marginal rates with a reduction of 14 percent on the tax rate in the highest marginal rate and increase standard deductions shook out this way in an overall reduction of $192 million.* The poorest taxpayers, comprising 38 percent of all taxpayers, would get ZERO in the way of tax cuts. They’d actually see increased tax rates, allegedly to be offset by standard deduction increases.”

Politico: “Indiana Republican Rep. Mike Pence would scrap the current tax system and replace it with a flat tax for all citizens. ‘The best option, the most pro-growth option is a flat tax. I believe it is time that America adopted a flat tax and scrapped the current system once and for all,’ he said Monday in at the Detroit Economic Club. ‘It’s fair, it’s simple, it’s effective. It’s an idea whose time has come,’ he said. … Under a flat tax, all Americans would pay the same percentage of their income in taxes.”

KRTV: “The entrepreneur made his fortune in the biotechnology industry, founding Roivant Sciences in 2014. The company, which encompassed Axovant, then the highest biotech IPO of its time, is incorporated in Bermuda. ‘The U.S. tax code is so darn broken that that’s what you ultimately have to do to be able to maximize value for shareholders,’ Ramaswamy said. ‘What I would prioritize as U.S. president is making sure we have a rational tax code in this country, a 12% flat tax across the board,’ he added when asked if, as president, he would work to prevent companies from going overseas because of taxes.”

NPR: “KELLY: Glad to have you with us. Do you think there is a real shot at overhauling the tax code?

HURD: Absolutely. I think there is. And I think being able to ensure that Americans have – keep more money in their pocket and not send it to Washington, D.C., is something that we can accomplish. And there’s broad support for these principles and concept of, you know, of closing some loopholes, lowering the tax rates for individuals and corporation. There is – there’s broad support across the Republican conference, and there’s also bipartisan support on many pieces of tax reform. You know, there’s legislation that has passed the House before on this topic.”

2024 MAGA Republicans don’t care that millions of hardworking Americans and seniors rely on Social Security and Medicare, and many are campaigning to end these programs as we know them. 

Washington Post: “His avowed stance, however, is at odds with Trump’s own record as president: Each of his White House budget proposals included cuts to Social Security and Medicare programs.”

CNN: “A CNN KFile review of comments from DeSantis’ 2012 congressional campaign found he repeatedly said he supported plans to replace Medicare with a system in which the government paid for partial costs of private plans or a traditional Medicare plan. In one interview with a local newspaper, DeSantis said he supported ‘the same thing’ for Social Security, citing the need for ‘market forces’ to restructure the program.”

Associated Press: “Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is proposing changes to entitlement programs for younger generations, opening the door to potential cuts to Social Security and Medicare if elected.”

Hutchinson: “Also, we’re going to address the issue of Social Security and Medicare in those first 20 days. We’re going to, as you know, it’s — it’s phased in to go into real trouble in 2033, and I’m going to set up a commission that’s going to look at the future of Medicare and Social Security, just as Ronald Reagan did in 1983.”

Semafor: “Mike Pence isn’t running from his old fiscal conservatism. Instead, he’s seemingly leaning into it by talking about privatizing Social Security, an idea the party largely abandoned after a politically damaging push in 2005. ‘I think the day could come where we can replace the New Deal with a Better Deal,’ he said during an interview in February. ‘Literally give younger Americans the ability to take a portion of their Social Security withholdings and put that into a private savings account that the government would oversee.’”

Sexton: “Thank you, Vivek.  When it comes to that safety net of Social Security, would privatization or partial privatization be on the table for your administration?”

Ramaswamy: “I think in principle, in the long run, that’s a reasonable conversation to have.”

Los Angeles Times: “New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, saying that the ‘American people have the appetite for hard truths,’ called Tuesday for cutting Social Security benefits and raising Medicare premiums for future upper-income retirees and raising the retirement age.”

Hurd: “You’ve got to have a serious question about programs like Medicare and Social Security. And not be afraid to talk about that.”

Republican presidential hopefuls have long, shameful records of railing against policies that support America’s hardworking middle-class families. 

Washington Post: “Among the ideas they discussed was Trump’s plan to enact a ‘universal baseline tariff’ on virtually all imports to the United States, the people said. This idea, which Trump has taken to describing as creating a ‘ring around the U.S. economy,’ could represent a massive escalation of global economic chaos, surpassing the international trade discord that marked much of his first administration.”

Trump: “Democrats in Congress should strongly VOTE AGAINST THE BIGGEST GREEN NEW FAKE DEAL BILL IN HISTORY, which is about to be rammed down the throats of Americans. Those Dems voting against this massive tax hike will be legends – actually be able to win again. Should be called the Inflation Expansion Act. Adds 87,000 gun carrying IRS Agents to cajole and harass you and your family. Call your Democrat Congressmen & women – tell them NOT to vote for this killer. Republicans are 100% against!”

Washington Post: “Trump administration asks court to completely invalidate Obama’s Affordable Care Act”

Politico: “The Inflation Reduction Act makes Florida eligible for some $350 million in energy efficiency incentives. But Gov. Ron DeSantis has rejected the funding and other measures, creating the most prominent blockade by any Republican governor against Biden’s economic agenda.”

WUSF: “Florida is one of 12 states that has not expanded its Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act. Because of this, signing up for health care in Florida can be a challenge. But, Ray says, it’s something that needs to be done – especially for Floridians below the federal poverty level. … Gov. Ron DeSantis and state Republican leaders have long rejected expanding eligibility for Medicaid, pointing in part to concerns about potential future costs.”

Fox News: “GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley plans on cutting down President Biden’s ‘disastrous’ energy policies as well as bringing oil production back to the United States, if she is elected to the Oval Office in 2024. Haley, who previously served as the governor of South Carolina, shared her energy plan with Fox News Digital ahead of her formal announcement in Texas on Thursday” 

“The GOP candidate also slammed Biden’s green energy policies, saying she would ‘roll back Biden’s wasteful green energy subsidies and regulations.’ Haley specified that a number of subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act could cost as much as $1.2 trillion along with a number of ‘Biden administration rules and regulations that would hamstring our oil and gas industries,’ citing Biden’s power plant regulations and his crackdown on gas-powered cars.”

Haley: “Our taxpayers and small businesses are already squeezed, and now we’re on the hook for billions of dollars thanks to President Obama’s spending and health care disasters. The last thing we can afford is a governor who supports ObamaCare. As governor, I plan to organize a group of governors from around the country to fight for our states’ rights and propose free-market solutions to health care and budget crises.”

CNBC: “The Senate on Tuesday voted by the narrowest margin to move forward with its Obamacare repeal push, a significant step for Republicans that still leaves senators searching for an agreement on how best to follow through on a campaign promise that has defined most of the last decade. Vice President Mike Pence was forced to break a tie as the Senate voted 51-50 to start debate on proposals to change the landmark health-care law.” 

New York Times: “Mr. Pence railed against the Biden administration’s landmark legislation to allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices — the same policy Mr. Trump endorsed, though failed to achieve.”

Bartiromo: “First thing I want to ask you is about this debt ceiling vote. You said you would not vote for it.” 

Ramaswamy: “That’s right. I think that the steps are too incrementally forward. We still have a spending crisis in this country. The point of these negotiations should be to actually address the fiscal crisis, not to window dress around it. You want to take the funding for the IRS, moving it from $80 billion to $70 billion while still leaving the hit squad intact. That doesn’t really change anything. Work requirements for Medicaid recipients, the Inflation Reductions Act’s pork fest for clean energy tax credits, none of that’s really changed.”

Scott: “The third thing I would do is I would simply eliminate the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, which of course, is a lie from the pit of hell. It increases inflation. It does not reduce inflation. It also increases taxes. I would start the process of gutting that legislation. I would eliminate the vast majority, if not all of the green energy credits. I would eliminate every single one that I could from an executive perspective. But I would also engage Congress to reverse that legislation.”

Scott: “I have and will consistently oppose Obamacare in my efforts to relieve the American people of the burden this bad law has imposed—for our families, our small businesses, our seniors, and our communities.” 

Christie: “The Inflation Reduction Act was a mistake.”

NJ.com: “The Christie administration allowed a $7.6 million federal grant, to be used to encourage New Jerseyans to enroll for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, to expire. That’s an expensive mistake. … But it hurts New Jersey residents who would benefit from the health care subsidies provided under the federal law, as well. The money was there to be had: Christie was irresponsible not to grab it.”

Hurd: “With 60% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, this hardly feels like building back better or restoring the soul of our nation. Most folks don’t even know what the Inflation Reduction Act is, because it’s done nothing for them.”