House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said Tuesday that he hopes Republicans can work across the aisle on more middle class tax cuts in the next Congress, when Democrats take a majority in the House of Representatives.
“This president really believes that middle class taxpayers, as much relief as they got from [last year’s tax overhaul], still feels like they’re the most squeezed in the country,” Brady told reporters in the Capitol on Tuesday afternoon. Despite Republicans losing the majority, “We’re going to push for more middle class taxpayers and see what common ground there is, without triggering tax hikes on families or local businesses.”
Last week President Trump suggested he’d be open to raising corporate income taxes in order to achieve the new middle class tax cut he promised before midterm elections.
“I would be certainly willing to do a little bit of an adjustment,” he said last Wednesday during a post-midterm elections press conference. “I would love to see a tax cut for the middle class.”
But Brady’s remarks suggest that Trump would face resistance from congressional Republicans in trying to trade a higher corporate tax rate for more middle class tax cuts. Republicans, conservative groups, and business trade groups worked hard to lower the corporate tax rate in last year’s tax overhaul.
Meanwhile, Republicans are set to clash with Democrats over taxes in other ways. Democrats plan to use their majority powers to try to obtain a look at Trump’s tax returns, setting up a possible legal battle and near-certain political fight with the administration and Republicans. Republicans will also have to push back against Democratic proposals to undo parts of last year’s tax law to pay for new programs.
On Tuesday, Brady also claimed that the tax code rewrite helped Republicans in the midterm elections, despite the losses suffered by the party and many of the lawmakers who helped write the bill.
“Can you imagine the outcome if we didn’t have a booming economy?” Brady asked. “It made a huge difference across this country and I think was key in a number of our Republican races.”
Republicans still hope to put several tax measures into law in what remains of this Congress, including bills passed by the House in September that would overhaul tax treatment of retirement savings, extend expiring tax benefits, and make technical corrections to last year’s law.
“We’ll see what appetite there is to pass some or the bulk of them before the end of the year,” Brady said. “What I can’t predict is how long this lame duck will go, and what the appetite is.”
