• President Trump on Wednesday proposed sharp reductions in both individual and corporate income tax rates, reducing the number of individual income tax brackets to three.
• The plan also called for the elimination of most itemized tax deductions.

By Alan Rappeport & Julie Hirschfeld Davis @ NYTimes.com, April 26

[....] “We want to move as fast as we can,” Steven T. Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said [....] “This bill is about creating economic growth and jobs.”

He vowed it would be “the biggest tax cut and the largest tax reform in the history of our country,” in line with Mr. Trump’s grandiose portrayal. But there was no expectation that the White House would elucidate how the deep cuts would be financed, and administration officials are cognizant of the challenges of pushing through a proposal that could dramatically add to the national debt.

If, in fact, the proposal cuts taxes but fails to close loopholes or raise some other taxes, it would not be a true reform of the tax code. It would be a tax cut along the lines of President George W. Bush’s tax measure in 2001 and 2003. Nor is it clear that it would be the largest in history. Tax cutters from Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge to John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan vie for that title.

Mr. Mnuchin offered few specifics about the blueprint, other than confirming that its centerpiece will be a 15 percent business tax rate, which would apply not only to corporations, but also to small businesses and other large owner-operated conglomerates, such as Mr. Trump’s real estate empire. He also said the White House is not on board with the border-adjustment tax that is central to House Republicans’ tax plan “in its current form,” setting up an intraparty struggle over the elements of the plan and how to offset the deep reductions envisioned.

Mr. Trump also wants to increase the standard deduction for individuals [.....]