House conservatives are slamming the idea of raising the marginal tax rate for individuals earning more than $1 million annually.
Four Republican lawmakers told the Daily Caller News Foundation Monday that they would not support raising the rate on the top income tax bracket as part of the president’s “one, big beautiful bill” that Congress is currently drafting. The Republicans’ opposition to a take hike on the wealthy follows reporting that lawmakers were considering raising the marginal tax rate for millionaires from 37% to roughly 40%.
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“I don’t think we’re going to raise taxes on anybody, especially not at the individual level,” Republican Texas Rep. Brandon Gill told the DCNF. “We don’t need to do that for the numbers to work for this reconciliation bill. We had already laid it out for the House’s [bill] instructions a few weeks ago. So that’s not necessary to make this work.”
“All your going to do is suppress people that are earning,” Republican Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett said of a hypothetical scenario where congressional Republicans were to enact a millionaire tax. “Instead of a flourishing of our economy, I think [you’re going to see] a suppression.”
“If you look at that top 1% … they pay for people who don’t even pay taxes, it’s phenomenal,” Republican Tennessee Rep. Diana Harshbarger told the DCNF. She panned the idea of imposing a tax hike on the highest earners as “squeezing the same people over and over” again.
Republican South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman also panned the idea of imposing a tax on high earners, characterizing the proposal as coming from the political left and a non-starter.
Trump said he “loves the concept” of a millionaire tax as a way to “take care of the middle class,” but voiced concerns of the political consequences of raising taxes on the wealthy in an interview with TIME Magazine Friday.
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“I’ve seen people lose elections for less, especially with the fake news,” the president told TIME.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters Monday that the “millionaire tax” is no longer on the table.
House GOP leadership is committed to achieving at least $1.5 trillion in spending reduction over a ten-year period to help pay for the president’s sweeping tax and spending agenda. House Republicans are also mulling over various proposals to raise revenue to help pay for Trump’s various tax priorities, including an extension of the expiring provisions of the 2017 Trump tax cuts.
Enacting a tax hike on millionaires so they pay a 40% rate would create roughly $420 billion in revenue over a decade, according to the Yale Budget Lab.
However, the proposal would face long odds in a Republican conference resistant to the idea of raising taxes on individuals at any income level. Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that House Republicans “have been working against the idea.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters Monday that he expects the president’s “one big, beautiful bill” to pass both chambers of Congress by the Fourth of July.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
