Trump Praises 1986 Tax Bill That He Denounced In 1999 As “One Of The The Worst Ideas In Recent History”

The Hill reports:



President Trump on Wednesday praised the 1986 Tax Reform Act while unveiling his administration’s plans on tax reform, marking an apparent reversal from his previous criticism of the law. “Our last major tax rewrite was 31 years ago,” Trump said to a crowd of supporters in Springfield, Missouri, on Wednesday, referring to the 1986 Tax Reform Act.

“It was really something special… In 1986, Ronald Reagan led the world, cutting our tax base by 34 percent. Under this pro-America system, our economy just went beautifully through the roof,” Trump continued. In 1999, however, Trump penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal blasting former President Reagan’s administration over the law.

Trump at the time ripped the elimination of the “passive loss” deduction, a tax shelter for real estate developers that Trump faulted the bill for eliminating “overnight.” In his op-ed, Trump argues that the provision in the 1986 bill was “one of the worst ideas in recent history.”