"I want to hear anything he has to say," Behne said. "He's going to be our next president. Come on."
Still, the criticisms from his rivals seem to be resonating with Trump, who has said he “would be the best jobs president that God ever created.”
In a town-hall meeting in South Carolina on Wednesday, he boasted that his tax plan would be “long on policy” and “very specific.”
Jared Bernstein, former chief economist for Vice President Joe Biden, a potential Democratic presidential campaign, said before Trump's news conference there were “a couple of inherent problems” with Trump's plan. He pointed out that about 40 percent of Americans are exempt from paying federal income taxes, and said the tax burden on the middle class “comes from other places.”
“Lowering payroll taxes, that's one thing, but then you have a Social Security funding problem,” Bernstein said. Trump said on 60 Minutes that he no longer wants to raise the retirement age to 70, and would not cut Social Security benefits.
On the CBS program, Trump also said he would increase taxes on Chinese imports if the country continues to devalue its currency, and would tax products made by companies that moved operations overseas to take advantage of lower rates. Those details weren't included in his tax plan.
Trump said he would make up for all that lost tax revenue by bringing more jobs back from overseas and would do so by not allowing foreign competitors like China to devalue their currency. If competitors don't comply, Trump will tax their imports, he said.
“If they don't come to the table, they're going to have a tax when they put their products into this country,” he said. “And they're going to behave.”
When host Scott Pelley brought up how such a practice could violate the North American Free Trade Agreement in place with Mexico, Trump said, “We will either renegotiate it or we will break it. Because, you know, every agreement has an end.”