Former Vice President Mike Pence has a message to his old boss.
Pence urges President Donald Trump. President Donald Trump served as vice president in Trump’s first administration, not to raise tax rates for wealthy Americans.
Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Employment Act is the domestic signature of his first White House term and is expected to expire this year if not extended by Congress.
For weeks, Republicans in the Trump White House and Congress have tolerated wealthy sunset tax cuts as a way to pay for the remaining tax cuts and other expensive second term priorities.
President Trump asks Johnson to speak
President Donald Trump urged House Speaker Mike Johnson to accept some of the tax increases on the wealthiest Americans as part of the overall budget settlement package. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
And in a call Wednesday, the president pushed House Speaker Mike Johnson to raise taxes on the highest-income earners and close the loophole in favorable profits in the settlement process, Fox News Digital confirmed. The development was first reported by Punchbowl News on Thursday.
Sources familiar with Trump’s ideas said it allows Trump to increase the percentage of individuals making more than $2.5 million by 2.6% from 37% to 39.6%.
However, as governor of Indiana and vice president, Pence, a fiscal conservative and budget hawk during his long political career in the House, has been a stern warning against raising the fees for the best earners.
“The suggestion that we’ve heard among parts of the administration and around the country, if we raise the top margin rate, so-called billionaire tax, would be a huge tax increase for small business owners across the United States,” Pence said. “We need to disagree.”
What Mike Pence told Fox News in an exclusive interview this week
Former Vice President Mike Pence has been receiving the profile of John F. Kennedy, who won the Courage Award at a ceremony at the JFK Library in Boston on May 4, 2025, urges President Trump to raise taxes for the wealthiest Americans. (AP photo/Robert F. Bucati)
And in an interview with Fox News Digital this week, the former vice president said, “The majority of people filing $1 million in taxes are simply individuals who own the company, who file taxes as individuals, but then they return the money to the company.
“Let’s make all Trump Pence tax cuts permanent. That’s a way to really lay the foundation for growing the economy in the coming days,” urged Pence.
Why Trump’s first vice president paid tribute to the Kennedy family
Interviewed in Boston after receiving the John F. Kennedy’s Courage Award, Pence said, “In November last year, President Trump gave all the world’s achievements and even saved the country all the world’s achievements by saving the country’s more freer Democratic administration.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence shakes his hand with President Donald Trump in the then presidential election before former President Jimmy Carter’s state funeral at Washington National Cathedral on January 9, 2025 (Mandel Nagan/Pool/AFP via Getty Image)
He also praised Trump “not only for his victory, but for securing the southern border, regaining military morale and recruitment, and for fighting the Houches.”
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But he said, “I truly believe that some of the other steps the President is taking away from his conservative agenda should be concerns that go against his legacy and ultimately our party and our country’s success.
“I truly believe that for the sake of prosperity… for the success of our country, we need to stick to those old-fashioned principles of strong defense, American leadership on the world stage, low government, taxes, traditional moral values, and the right to life.
Paul Steinhauser is a political reporter based in swing state in New Hampshire. He covers campaign trails from coast to coast. ”
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