Trump: ‘I’m Not Cutting Services, But I’m Cutting Spending’

WALLACE:  “You are one of the few candidates who have come out with a detailed tax plan.  Let’s drill down into that. You would cut the seven tax brackets to four.”
TRUMP:  “Correct.”
WALLACE:  “Zero, 10 percent, 20 percent, 25 percent.  You’d cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent.  You would limit deductions for higher income earners and you would eliminate carried interest, preferential tax treatment for hedge funders. What’s the thinking?”
TRUMP:  “Well, the thinking is we have the highest tax rate in the world.  In the entire world, we have the highest tax rates.  We have $2.5 trillion overseas that isn’t coming back into this country.  We can’t get it back in, which tells you, by the way, something else. Our politicians, Republicans and Democrats, they all agree that money should come back in.  There’s gridlock in Washington because there’s no leadership. So what I’m doing is — is large tax cuts, especially for the middle class.  And they’re going to — we’re going to have a dynamic country.  We’re going to have dynamic economics.  And it’s going to be something really special and people are going back to work.”
WALLACE:  “But there are two concerns.  The Conservative Tax Foundation, Conservative Tax Foundation, says that over 10 years, you would create — you would add $10 trillion to the deficit.  And there’s also the question of who would benefit under your tax plan. The Tax Foundation says the middle class would see after tax income increase 7.2 percent.  The top 1 percent would see a spike of 21.6 percent.  So between that and ending the estate tax, the Trump family and folks like you would make out great.”
TRUMP: “The estate tax has been a disaster. First of all, it’s double taxation.  Some people could even say it’s triple taxation.”
WALLACE: “But how about the idea that you’re going to blow a hole in the deficit and that the top 1 percent is going to make out a lot better —“  
TRUMP: “Well, they’re going to make out better if the economy gets better.  The economy is very sick.  We’re losing our jobs to China, to Japan, to every country with — we’re making horrible trade deals. We are losing jobs in this country hundreds and hundreds of thousands of jobs are being lost. And part of the reason is our taxes are so high in this country. I’m also cutting.  You know, they don’t talk about that, and I’m doing that in a different little policy segments that were going to be announcing in three weeks.”
WALLACE: “Cutting spending.”
TRUMP: “But we’re cutting — we’re going to be cutting tremendous amounts of — of money and waste and fraud and abuse.  You know, they had a case —“  
WALLACE: “Would you cut serve — would you cut departments?”
TRUMP: “No, I’m not cutting services, but I’m cutting spending.  But I may cut Department of Education.  I believe Common Core is a very bad thing.  I believe that we should be no — you know, educating our children from Iowa, from New Hampshire, from South Carolina, from California, from New York. I think that it should be local education. If you look at a Jeb Bush and some of these others, they want them to be educated by — by Washington, D.C. bureaucrats.  So the Department of Education is one. Environmental Protection, what they do is a disgrace.  Every week they come out with new regulations.  They’re making it impossible —“  
WALLACE: “Who’s going to protect the environment?”
TRUMP:  They — we’ll be fine with the environment.  We can leave a little bit, but you can’t destroy business.”