President Trump is getting heat from his right flank for declaring he loves the concept of a millionaires’ tax increase even though he says he knows it would be used against him politically.

Trump made the declaration in an interview with Time magazine and then quickly distanced himself from the proposal to raise the marginal tax rate for people earning more than 1 million dollars per year.

But the president’s warm embrace of “the concept” of raising taxes on millionaires is causing an uproar among traditional conservatives and business groups even while some Trump allies on Capitol Hill say they’re open to it as long as Trump is on board.

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, a prominent conservative leader, said Senate and House Republicans have been telling Trump “this is a really bad idea.”

“This idea is dead,” he declared. “It ain’t happening.”

Norquist said that while Trump may have said he loves the concept of raising taxes on the wealthy, he’s come to his senses and realizes that doing so would be “political death” as it was for former President George H.W. Bush, who lost his 1992 reelection after breaking his pledge, “Read my lips: No new taxes.”

“This is the dumbest idea that I’ve ever heard,” Norquist said. “It’s never going to be in the reconciliation package,” referring to the budget bill that will be used to enact Trump’s legislative agenda.

Norquist said Trump is on the record repeatedly saying he would support tax cuts for all Americans, the wealthy included, a position strongly supported by the overwhelming majority of GOP senators.

“Do you know how many times he’s on video saying we’re going to have a tax cut for every single American, upper class, middle class?” he said. “And how many times on tape he vilified Kamala Harris” for wanting to raise taxes on upper-income Americans and small businesses?

Yet Trump........

© The Hill