Republican leaders held a “friendly, positive” meeting about tax reform with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, a day ahead of President Trump’s planned announcement of his proposal to reform the tax system.
“I’m really looking to President Trump’s principles on tax reform tomorrow and getting to work together with the White House and the Senate to deliver,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said after the meeting. “It was just a very positive discussion.”
Brady declined to answer questions about any details of the White House proposal, such as how it would impact the deficit. Trump’s proposal would reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent.
Brady said congressional Republicans and the White House have “a very strong consensus on the key aspects,” adding, “we are just going to work off that foundation.”
Mnuchin said the White House, Treasury, Senate and House GOP “all agree on what we are trying to do and we are committed to getting tax reform done.”
The treasury secretary added he “couldn’t be happier” with the outcome of the meeting, which took place in the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
In addition to Brady and McConnell, R-Ky., Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch participated. National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn also attended.
Brady and Hatch, R-Utah, are the chief tax writers in the House and Senate, respectively.
Hatch said little about the joint discussions as he left McConnell’s office.
“This was just a preliminary meeting,” Hatch said.
Hatch recently told the Washington Examiner that he planned to work with Democrats on some aspects of tax reform, which differs from McConnell, who said the tax deal will not include input from Democrats because the two parties differ significantly on the issue.
“Today’s Democratic Party seem to me to be pretty occupied with wealth transfer from those who have done well to those who have done less well,” McConnell said Tuesday. “No matter how you feel about that, that’s unrelated to having a set of tax laws that promote growth. And as others were saying here, we’re in a slog here. ”
