President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans will be rolling out their tax cut plan Thursday with little public support, according to the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
In this new NBC/WSJ poll, 25 percent of respondents called Trump’s tax plan a good idea, while 35 percent called it a bad idea. Nearly four-in-10 Americans did not have an opinion at all. The legislation's unpopularity roughly compares to that of former President George W. Bush's failed effort to partially privatize Social Security, according to NBC.
The latest poll found there was a lot of confusion surrounding the GOP's tax plan, which has mostly been kept in the dark as Republicans have tried to create a bill that is palatable for its voting base.
25 percent of respondents in the poll said they would pay more in taxes under the plan, but 14 percent said they would pay less and 21 percent said they would pay about the same. 40 percent said they don’t know enough about the plan.
To make matters worse for Republicans, few Americans believe Trump's tax plan will aid the economy, as only 19 percent said that the plan will improve the economy “a great deal” or “quite a bit,” while a combined 66 percent indicated that the legislation will help “just some” or “not at all.”
"For what is a major legislative objective of the president and his party, tax reform is in very mushy shape," Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster who helps produce the NBC/WSJ poll, said.
House Republicans announced late Wednesday night that they would not release their tax reform plan that was originally scheduled for Wednesday. Instead, the GOP decided to delay the release so that the Ways and Means Committee could continue working on the legislation. The GOP still has to deal with infighting over significant provisions in the bill, including the elimination of a tax break that allows individuals to deduct state and local taxes on their federal returns. Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady suggested over the weekend that they would preserve the property tax deduction to appease any concerns from Republican representatives of high-tax states.
If the bill is released Thursday, GOP leaders would have just 10 official legislative days before the holiday to overhaul the entire U.S. tax system. To pass the legislation in Congress, they must gain the support from a caucus displeased with how the tax plan rollout has gone. Bloomberg reported that Republican members have complained of being left in the dark and are fearing the public's pushback once the bill is released.
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