Senate Democrats say President Trump assured them that the GOP tax reform proposal would protect the middle class from any scenario that would result in higher taxes.
“The president’s message was, repeatedly, I don’t want the wealthy to get more, I don’t want the middle class to get hurt, I want to fix this thing,” Sen Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said following a Wednesday morning White House meeting with members of the committee.
Democrats and Republicans on the Finance panel met with Trump to discuss a bipartisan path on tax reform. But Democrats say Republicans did not offer specific concessions that would attract their support.
“The most interesting thing in the meeting was that almost every Republican said they want to help the middle class and not the rich,” said Sen Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. “I don’t know how this happens, because every time, they accidentally help the rich. On every tax bill. On everything they do here.”
Republicans are proposing a tax reform bill that lowers individual taxes, doubles the standard deduction and expands the child tax credit. But it would also end the state and local tax deduction, which is widely utilized by the middle class.
Wyden said he believes removing the deduction would result in some middle-income earners paying more in taxes. He suggested Democrats are not going to settle for anything less than a major rewrite of the GOP tax proposal.
“Any plan that starts off with the middle class being in a serious hole, you are not going to fix with just a little tinkering here and there,” Wyden said. “Every time someone brought up one of these concerns, the president said we are going to take care of that, it’s numbers, of course we can. We’ll take care of it with deductions.”
Republicans are not counting on help from the Democrats.
Trump, Wyden said, told the group, “I’m for the things you all keep bringing up,” and Democrats would argue the GOP proposal would not help the middle class.
“Then he would say, it’s going to get taken care of,” Wyden said, describing Trump’s response.
Republicans plan to advance tax reform this week in the Senate by passing the fiscal 2018 budget, which will serve as the legislative vehicle for the overhaul plan and will allow it to pass with just 51 votes, which would circumvent a filibuster by the Democrats.
Wyden described the meeting as “professional and direct.” But Trump did not make any specific promises to change the proposal, and called on lawmakers to do the negotiating.
“I think he said, well, you guys can work it out, we are available, that kind of thing,” Wyden said.
