Trump’s IRS Budget Cut, Explained

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Catherine Rampell notes a contradiction:

This is easily explained. First, Republicans routinely try to cut the IRS enforcement budget as a favor to the rich, who dislike being audited. Second, Trump’s budget, like his tweets, is a showpiece for his fans, not a serious document.

See, Congress is going to ignore Trump’s budget, and he knows it. However, he wants credit for having the guts to shake things up and propose big cuts. This will impress his base, which naively assumes that things like official budget documents are serious stuff. What’s more, years from now, when we’re running monster deficits thanks to Trump’s tax cuts, he’ll be able to say that he tried to cut the budget, but couldn’t get the pathetic lifers in Congress to go along.

It’s all part of the Trump Show, and we are just the audience.

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We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

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If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

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