Tax cuts are not worth the GOP's soul

It profits a party nothing to give its soul for the whole world ... but for tax cuts, Republicans?

President Trump.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

During the 2016 presidential campaign, pundits routinely tried to predict the fatal gaffe that would inevitably kill Donald Trump's candidacy. But nothing did the trick. No matter what Trump did, Republicans simply wouldn't quit him.

Yet many might have dumped Trump if the candidate had seriously suggested raising taxes. That's apparently something the modern GOP can't tolerate. And Trump certainly understood this, which is why he portrayed himself as an uber "supply-side" conservative on tax cuts despite heresy on other supposedly core issues such as trade, entitlement reform, and an internationalist foreign policy. He knew tax cuts — along with abortion and Reagan veneration — were a Republican red line that even he dare not cross.

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James Pethokoukis

James Pethokoukis is the DeWitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he runs the AEIdeas blog. He has also written for The New York Times, National Review, Commentary, The Weekly Standard, and other places.