GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump, blistered by critics for campaigning on vague and unattainable solutions to the nation's woes, is beginning to talk specifics.
During an appearance on
Bloomberg's "With All Due Respect," Trump said he'd simplify the tax code. The wealthy, including himself, should pay more taxes while the middle class needs, and deserves, a cut. It's only fair, he argued.
He used hedge fund profits — taxed at a lower rate than regular income — as an example.
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"I would take carried interest out, and I would let people making hundreds of millions of dollars a year pay some tax, because right now they are paying very little tax and I think it's outrageous," Trump told hosts Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. "I want to lower taxes for the middle class."
He went on to say that "the middle class is getting clobbered in this country."
"You know the middle class built this country, not the hedge fund guys, but I know people in hedge funds that pay almost nothing and it's ridiculous, OK?"
He told Bloomberg that he adamantly believes congressional Republicans should go to the mat with President Obama over raising the debt ceiling.
"I would say that it's worth the fight, because honestly there's so much fat in Washington, that if you had the right people in there you could cut it and there would be no problem," Trump said.
He also wants to lower corporate tax rates to address a practice known as corporate inversion, where companies relocate their "legal domicile" outside the U.S. — to a country with lower taxes — while maintaining its operations domestically.
"You know it used to be you'd leave New York for Florida, or you leave New Jersey for Texas or something," he said. "It used to be state to state. Now it's country for country. We have companies with thousands and thousands of jobs that are leaving this country to go out and get their money."
Earlier this month, Trump said he wants to
simplify the tax code so that he average American could complete it without having to hire a professional.
"Put H&R Block out of business," he said during an appearance on "Fox & Friends."
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