Richmond, Va. — Media magnate Steve Forbes urged free-market activists gathered in Richmond on Saturday to demand an “obese” tax cut from Republicans now, and not to let Senate rules stand in the way.
“We need a big, fat tax cut,” the former presidential candidate told volunteers and activists at a summit for Americans for Prosperity, a free-market group. “Make it an obese tax cut — the bigger the better.”
Forbes told the audience of hundreds to pressure the Senate leadership to pass a tax cut now, and not to let considerations about the upper chamber’s arcane rules stand in the way.
“Full speed ahead — damn the torpedoes, damn the CBO!” he said, applying the famous words of Civil War admiral David Farragut to the Congressional Budget Office, which judges whether bills add to federal deficits and could hold up a revenue-losing tax bill.
“You write the rules. You don’t let those rules get in the way unnecessarily on a big tax cut,” the longtime supply-sider told the Washington Examiner on the sidelines of the conference. He said that hoped the activists in the audience would pressure Senate leadership to bend or break the rules to pass tax cuts. Democrats would do the same if the situation were reversed, he suggested.
Senate rules are a major constraint facing the Trump administration and congressional Republicans as they want to pass tax reform. To pass permanent tax changes without Democratic help using the procedure known as reconciliation, Republicans need to ensure that the bill, on paper, does not add to long-term deficits. Otherwise, the bill would have to be only temporary.
While House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and some within the White House have stated that a permanent reform is the goal, Forbes suggested Saturday that Republicans should go the more expedient route of simply cutting taxes on a temporary basis to defeat Democrats in upcoming elections.
“They’re all hung up — ‘oh we ought to make ’em permanent.'” Forbes said. “I’ve got news for you guys, nothing is permanent in Washington.”
Of note, President Trump has also chafed at the Senate’s rules pertaining to the filibuster and reconciliation, and called on Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to revise them.
Americans for Prosperity is poised to be a major outside influence on the tax reform debate. The group has already launched ad campaigns to pressure lawmakers to back tax reform. Sean Lansing, the group’s COO, said Saturday that they planned to do 70 events in 36 states over the congressional August recess to organize activists to push members of Congress for reform.
Lansing warned that members of Congress would face consequences if they failed to pass transformational tax reform this year, but suggested that the group and its members are open-minded about the parameters of that reform.
“If they pass massive tax cuts across the board but they’re not able to get it on a postcard or to get rid of brackets, that’s not a do-or-die necessarily — if they are able to cut rates significantly,” Lansing said, referring to Republicans’ stated goal of reducing tax brackets and allowing people to file on a postcard-sized return. “We’ve never been an all-or-nothing organization,” he added.
