Ex-Labor Secretary sounds off: Trump's 'Tax Scam 2.0' is in the works

Former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich fired off a warning on X Thursday about former President Donald Trump's new plans for tax changes, which will reportedly move forward if Republicans secure a majority in the House.

These plans, he warned, will be a redux of the first Trump administration's massive tax cuts for billionaires and corporations, the vast majority of which went to top-income earners and failed to deliver on promises of new job growth.

"The Trump tax scam in a nutshell: 1) Facilitate a huge giveaway to corporations and the rich 2) Send the national debt soaring in the process 3) Use this as an excuse to cut spending on government programs the rest of us rely on," wrote Reich.

In other words, he added, "Trump's tax scam 2.0 will be more of the same."

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This comes as Trump has made a variety of promises about various tax cuts that he would push to enact, like the elimination of taxes on tips or on Social Security payments, the latter of which could rapidly hasten the insolvency of the Social Security Trust Fund. Perhaps most alarming to economists, Trump has also pledged to move forward with massive, across-the-board tariffs on consumer goods, which experts have warned will skyrocket the cost of practically everything Americans buy and use daily.

Reich has sounded the alarm on Trump's economic proposals for months.

"He says that he wants to raise tariffs," he stated on a recent MSNBC segment. "He says that's going to be good for the economy. But, in fact, we all know a tariff is a tax on whatever is imported. We pay more because of a tariff. Donald Trump's only other policy is to reduce taxes on mostly the wealthy and big corporations, as he did before. He promised, you remember, that that would improve everybody's bottom line by $4,000. Well, did it yours? Did it mine? I can tell you, I don't know anybody who got $4,000 wealthier because of the Trump tax cut."