AP Photo/Curtis Means/DailyMail via AP, Pool
Steve Bannon, President-elect Donald Trump’s one-time chief strategist, said in a Friday interview he is in favor of taxing corporations and the wealthy.
Bannon told Semafor’s David Weigel that breaking away from some of the GOP’s long-held economic positions could help cement Trump’s legacy and that he views the soon-to-be president as a historic figure.
“This is a 1932-type realignment, if we do this right,” Bannon explained. “Look at the demographics that got us here – black, Hispanic, white, working class, all of it. If we deliver for these people, and I mean deliver in a big way economically, then this is a coalition that could last for 50 years.”
He added that loyalty to “crony capitalism” and “tax breaks for the corporations” could “squander” a unique moment in history.
Bannon was asked about Trump’s wealthiest supporters and how he should square away an economic policy that benefits billionaires and working-class voters. Bannon said Trump could serve the latter by hiking tax rates for the former:
Since 2008, $200 billion has gone into stock repurchases. If that had gone into plants and equipment, think what that would have done for the country. I’m for a dramatic increase in corporate taxes. We have to increase taxes on the wealthy. For getting our guys’ taxes cut, we’ve got to cut spending, which they’re gonna resist. Where does the tax revenue come from? Corporations and the wealthy. And when they start squealing, we have a conversation.
He added, “We’re all partners in this, everybody’s going to take a little pain, but the working people are going to take less pain than you guys.”
Bannon also criticized Republicans such as former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who he said made promises to voters that were never delivered on.
“There has to be no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security,” Bannon told Weigel. “Guess what that’s gonna do? You get DOGE and OMB to do cuts in year one — not this Kevin McCarthy bullshit where you have $2 trillion of cuts, but they’re all in year nine and ten, so they never materialize. Real cuts.”
