Time Asia — October 10, 2017

POLITICS

An unlikely

salesman

for the

Republican

Party’s tax

plan

By Zeke J. Miller

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin briefs reporters during the U.N. General Assembly

LIKE A NOVICE WAITER FACING

unruly diners, Steven Mnuchin has

spent the past six months trying to

entice Washington with what should

be an appetizing offering: tax reform.

Huddled in closed-door sessions in

ornate conference rooms across the

capital, the Treasury Secretary has

offered options, and taken orders,

in a chaotic search for consensus on

the Republican Party’s long-sought

legislative agenda item. But on Sept. 27,

when Mnuchin and congressional

Republicans emerged from the kitchen,

what they put on the table amounted

to a promise of dessert with little sense

of when the main course would arrive,

let alone what it would consist of.

The tax-reform package Mnuchin

and his allies presented would slash

corporate tax rates from 36% to 20%,

raise the lowest tax bracket from 10%

to 12% and increase the number of

people who would pay no taxes. But

the ultimate shape of the proposal—

and its impact on middle- and lower-

income Americans—was impossible

to determine. The specifics on many

deductions and the precise new

income brackets are not yet on offer.

Despite the GOP’s outward

enthusiasm for the rollout, behind

the scenes the concern among

Republicans was palpable. Tax reform

now represents the last, best hope for

big-ticket legislation. Few expect the

measure to take shape until early next

year as Republicans must again try to

reach agreement on what they actually

want the big bill to be.

Helping to deliver that package

is an improbable role for Mnuchin,

‘THE JOB OF TREASURY SECRETARY IS CHIEFLY TO BE A WASHINGTON HORSE WHISPERER TO THE FINANCIAL MARKETS.’—NEXT PAGE

AP/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDRES KUDACKI