How America's Vision of Progressive Tax Reform Died

After his losing effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, President Trump is now moving on to “tax reform.” On Wednesday, he unveiled the outlines of his fiscal package, which will include slashing the corporate income tax rate from 35 to 20 percent, lower the top income tax rate from 39.6 to 35 percent, doubling the standard deduction for individual taxpayer, and increasing the lowest rate from 10 to 12 percent. The plan will include some loophole-closing reforms, though the details of the package are not yet clear. Trump was blunt about his rhetorical strategy at a meeting with evangelical leaders, when he reportedly said that talking about “tax reform” was a smarter strategy for communicating about the initiative than talking about “tax cuts.”

Trump’s definition of tax reform reveals how much has changed in recent decades. Tax reform once meant raising tax rates on wealthier Americans and closing loopholes that benefited powerful economic interests, all with the goal of redistributing income from the top to the middle and bottom income brackets. Until the 1980s, a progressive tax system was seen as the best mechanism for diminishing the gap