Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appeared to backtrack Thursday on a key tax proposal from him and President Donald Trump.
Lutnick joined Fox News to speak with host Martha MacCallum on Trump's plan to eliminate the income tax for people making below $150,000 a year. MacCallum quoted his interview on CBS News, "Trump wants no taxes on people making below $150,000."
Lutnick explained, "That's taking it out of context."
According to Lutnick, that promise was actually "aspirational" — the plan would only happen if they balanced the budget.
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It has been part of a plan Lutnick has pushed since at least October. He claims that those income taxes can be made up using taxes on foreign goods as Trump implements his tariffs.
Juliet Jeske, founder of Decoding Fox News, a media project and podcast, called Lutnick out on "lies" in all capital letters.
"He's just lying," she said.
Last week when Lutnick mentioned his plan, Jeske reminded followers, "Lutnick is a stock broker. He’s not an economist. He thinks we could replace income tax with tariffs. About 2% of our revenue comes from tariffs and 47% (varies every year) comes from income taxes. He’s glorified the Gilded Age - a time of extreme income inequality & high poverty."
Eric York, the VP of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, posted on X "Eliminating taxes for everyone making under $150,000 will come after Trump balances the budget, per Sec. Lutnick. (That means it won’t happen)."
Attorney and Western Mass Politics & Insight editor-in-chief Matt Szafranski said on Bluesky, "This guy is just an a--kisser because he repeats the external revenue service gobbledygook Trump coughed up a few months ago."
Voiceover artist Mandy Exly reposted the video on Bluesky, saying, "Just gonna save this here, so that in 2 years, when the exact opposite happens, and this Lutnick guy is still alive - we can remember exactly what he said."
University of Michigan School of Economics professor Justin Wolfers commented on Lutnick's plan when he began shopping it around in February.
"The problem with that is that it's quite simply impossible. The only other problem is that it's also a bad idea," he said. He also included an interview he did with MSNBC explaining further.
Self-described "fiscal conservative" Joe Schueller posted on X, "The idea that someone making $149,999.99 or less (me) would not pay even a single red cent in taxes—even with a balanced budget—is completely laughable to me—a fiscal conservative. Reform and cut the programs that matter or take your fantasy land horses--- somewhere else, bro."
One individual quipped that Lutnick is only proposing it because, "We are losing the ability to get people hyped for an economic norovirus."
Another person on X who says in their biography they work to infuriate the American Enterprise Institute's economists, pointed out the key word in Lutnick's context: "aspirational." He highlighted it as "aspirational economics."