DEMS/GOP/TAXES/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump went to West Virginia this month to talk about tax cuts, but he got a bit distracted. He talked about China, the North American Free Trade Agreement, border security, ‘sanctuary cities’ and states he won in 2016. Eventually he turned to his prepared comments on taxes.’This was going to be my remarks,’ he said, holding up a sheet of paper. ‘It would have taken about two minutes, but’ — and here he threw the paper over his shoulder — ‘to hell with it. That would have been a little boring. A little boring. Right. Now I’m reading off the first paragraph, I said, ‘This is boring.” If Mr. Trump has lost some interest in the $1.5 trillion tax overhaul that he signed into law last year — even though the White House keeps scheduling events to promote it, including one in Florida on Monday — well, the country is right there with him. A brief flurry of activity is planned this week by supporters and opponents of the new law, to coincide with Tuesday’s [4-17-18] filing deadline for 2017 income taxes. But otherwise, by all sorts of metrics, Americans aren’t talking very much about a law that Republicans had hoped to make a centerpiece of their midterm election message.”
–Jim Tankersley and Karl Russell, “No One’s Talking About the New Tax Law,” The New York Times online, April 16, 2018