Republicans are more unified on tax reform than on anything else, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Thursday in talking up the prospects of legislation passing this year.
In a brief press conference at New Balance’s Lawrence, Mass., factory, Ryan was asked why the public should have confidence that Republicans will pass tax reform when they have struggled to fulfill the promise of replacing Obamacare. “As Republicans, we are wired the same way on tax reform,” Ryan replied.
In contrast with the party’s differences on healthcare policy, he said, “we are so much more unified on tax reform.”
“I feel far more confidence of anything we’re going to do this year, that tax reform, which we’re going to do before the end of the year, is going to get done,” Ryan said.
Ryan made the trip to the Bay State on Thursday to press the case for overhauling the tax code.
“We’re going to cut your taxes,” Ryan told workers at the factory after a roundtable with New Balance management and other Massachusetts business people. “You work hard, you work long. And the government’s quite honestly not making the best of it.”
Ryan didn’t discuss any of the talks he is engaging in with the Trump administration or Senate Republicans in an effort to agree on a tax reform plan, except to say that the talks were going well. He did, however, tout a simpler individual tax code and a lower business tax rate to make U.S. businesses more competitive.
