Tuesday’s edition of the CBS Evening News featured one of only two stories on the 2016 campaign (with the other on ABC) and centered around using a liberal tax group passed off as “non-partisan” to bash, from the left, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s tax plan.
Trumpeting the “non-partisan Tax Policy Center,” chief White House correspondent Major Garrett used multiple soundbites from senior fellow Howard Gleckman to hype that “an independent analysis says Trump's plan would cost the Treasury $10 trillion over 10 years and increase the nation's $18 trillion debt.”
Gleckman opined to Garrett that “even a Republican Congress would never pass something like this” after considering the “deficit consequences and it just would be impossible.”
As he did on Monday night, Garrett invoked Ronald Reagan and in turn the idea of trickle-down economics as Trump echoes Reagan’s promise that “economic growth triggered by lower federal taxes would make up for most of the lost revenue.”
After a Trump soundbite talking about the possibility of is assertion: “Frankly, that's implausible. Some would say it's ridiculous. No tax proposal is going to double economic growth.”
On multiple occasions over the years, the Media Research Center has documented how the Tax Policy Center was a creation of two liberal think tanks in the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution.
Back on July 7, 2008, the CBS newscast also touted the group as purportedly showing that then-candidate Barack Obama’s “tax cuts” were more sound than those offered by Republican Senator John McCain (Ariz.).
Just a week earlier on June 30, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos did the same on ABC’s This Week while attacking Republican guest Tim Pawlenty using the report touting Obama’s tax plan.
The transcript of the segment from the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley on September 29 can be found below.
CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley
September 29, 2015
6:37 p.m. Eastern[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Reality Check]
SCOTT PELLEY: When a presidential candidate calls his tax plan amazing, as Donald Trump did yesterday, it calls for a reality check. So we asked Major Garrett to dig into this plan that Trump calls simple, easy, and fair.
DONALD TRUMP: It will provide major tax relief for middle-income and for most other Americans.
MAJOR GARRETT: Under Trump's plan, workers earning less than $25,000 a year would pay no federal income tax. The top bracket would shrink from nearly 40 percent to 25 percent and the corporate tax would fall from 35 percent to 15 percent.
TRUMP: All of this does not add to our debt or our deficit.
GARRETT: But an independent analysis says Trump's plan would cost the Treasury $10 trillion over 10 years and increase the nation's $18 trillion debt. Howard Gleckman of the non-partisan Tax Policy Center.
TAX POLICY CENTER’s HOWARD GLECKMAN: Congress would never pass something like this. Even a Republican Congress would never pass something like this.
GARRETT [TO GLECKMAN]: Would never pass trump plan.
GLECKMAN: Would never pass the Trump plan because it would look deficit consequences and it just would be impossible.
GARRETT: Trump, like Ronald Reagan before him, promises economic growth triggered by lower federal taxes would make up for most of the lost revenue.
TRUMP: We're look at a three percent, but we think it could be five, it could even be six. We’re going to have growth that is tremendous.
GLECKMAN: Frankly, that's implausible. Some would say it's ridiculous. No tax proposal is going to double economic growth.
GARRETT: To offset the tact cuts, Trump would slash government spending by as much as 20 percent and eliminate some tax deductions and credits, but Trump would leave in place two of the largest deductions for mortgage interest and charitable contributions.
GLECKMAN: It sounds look a great idea, but where is the money going to come from?
GARRETT: Economic models show Trump's tax cuts could, over 10 years, create more than five million new jobs and increase wages more than six percent, but, Scott, the bottom 10 percent of American wage earners would get a fraction of the 15 percent tax cut Trump’s plan would shower on the wealthiest 10 percent.
PELLEY: Major Garrett with the details in our Washington newsroom tonight. Major, thank you.
