The White House is open to removing a provision from the tax reform process that would repeal the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate in order to make sure the bill gets to President Trump’s desk.
White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Trump wants to repeal and replace Obamacare. However, he’s going to be pragmatic about the tax reform process.
“I don’t think anybody doubts where the White House is on repealing and replacing Obamacare,” Mulvaney said. “We absolutely want to do it. If we can repeal part of Obamacare as part of the tax bill and have a tax bill that is still a good tax bill that can pass, that’s great. If it becomes an impediment to getting the best tax bill that we can, we’re okay with taking it out.”
However, Mulvaney said he doesn’t think the measure is an impediment to passing tax reform.
That may change in the future — right now, at least two Senate Republicans want the repeal of the individual mandate struck from the tax reform bill and Republicans in the upper chamber can only afford two defections in order to pass the bill on a majority-rules basis.
Mulvaney said recent reports that indicate the tax reform package may end up raising taxes on the middle class in a few years aren’t extremely concerning to the White House.
If Trump feels that every family won’t get a tax cut, then he simply won’t sign the bill, Mulvaney said. The real question is about whether tax reform will end up sparking economic growth, which Mulvaney believes it will, and shrinking the deficit that way.
“The White House is not going to sign a bill that raises taxes for the middle class, but what you just read gets deep in the weeds of scoring those particular tax bills and one of the fundamental assumptions is getting rid of a mandate means folks are going to start to give stuff up,” he said. “If they don’t want it they don’t have to have it but changing the mandate doesn’t kick people off of policies.”
