'You’ll lose a lot of money': Trump and Johnson throw 'cold water' on tax hike for millionaires

24 April

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) at Columbia University in New York City on April 24, 2024 (Lev Radin/ Shutterstock.com)

President Donald Trump is hoping that GOP lawmakers will pass a "big, beautiful bill" that combines his legislative priorities and get it to the White House for his signature. But even though Republicans have small majorities in both branches of Congress, they have their disagreements on what a megabill should look like.

Moreover, Republicans aren't in sync on how to pay for it. Some budget hawks in the Tea Party and the House Freedom Caucus are hoping for spending cuts, but a group of House Republicans in swing districts are saying that Medicaid cuts are off the table for them.

Meanwhile, Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), NBC News reports, are ruling out the possibility of raising taxes on millionaires.

According to NBC News' Sahil Kapur, "The tax rate on the highest earners is set to automatically increase from 37 percent to 39.6 percent at the end of this year when major portions of Trump's tax cuts from 2017 expire. Some Republican lawmakers have said they're open to letting that top rate increase as a way to limit the deficit impact of their agenda, which includes tax breaks and spending increases on immigration enforcement and the military."

Johnson, Kapur notes, "threw cold water on the prospect of a tax hike" on millionaires during a Wednesday, April 23 appearance on Fox News.

Johnson told the right-wing cable news outlet, "I'm not in favor of raising the tax rates because our party is the group that stands against that traditionally. So, there are lots of ideas thrown out on the table along this process over the last year, but I would just say for everybody, just wait and see."

Trump, meanwhile, is arguing that millionaires will leave the United States if their tax rates are too high.

On April 23 in the White House Oval Office, Trump told reporters, "I think it would be very disruptive, because a lot of the millionaires would leave the country. The old days, they left states. They go from one state to the other. Now, with transportation so quick and so easy, they leave countries."

Trump continued, "You’ll lose a lot of money if you do that. And other countries that have done it have lost a lot of people. They lose their wealthy people. That would be bad, because the wealthy people pay the tax."

Read NBC News' full article at this link.

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