President Trump on Monday said that he may order a payroll tax cut via an executive order to boost the economy during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I can do that also through an executive order, so we’ll be talking about that,” Trump said at a White House press briefing.
Trump has lobbied for months for a temporary payroll tax cut, arguing it would directly boost worker wages after widespread salary cuts.
The idea found little support on Capitol Hill, even among Republican senators, who unveiled a $1 trillion coronavirus relief package last week that would send another round of $1,200 stimulus checks to most people — a policy Trump also supports.
Democrats passed a rival $3 trillion package in the House in May that included almost $1 trillion in aid for state and local governments.
“They want to bail out cities and states that have been in trouble from years of bad management — in all cases Democrat-run cities, and we don’t think that’s fair,” Trump said.
Using an executive order to cut taxes has been more commonly discussed to index capital gains to inflation, which would lower taxes on real estate and stocks owned for a long period of time. There are different legal opinions on whether that’s feasible.
Trump shelved indexing capital gains last year after deciding it would disproportionately benefit the wealthy.
“Indexing, it’s got its fans and it’s got its opponents, and I would say they are split 50-50,” Trump told The Post in May. “Look, there is no panacea other than hard work. But it’s something that I’ve been thinking about.”