Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said GOP lawmakers are coming around to a plan he and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., are promoting as a way to make the U.S. more competitive while generating roughly $1 trillion to pay for their tax code overhaul.
“I feel really good about where we’re going; we’re making progress every day,” Brady said on Monday. “Look, no one’s yet convinced me why equal taxation isn’t the right way to go in America, because that’s what this is about, taxing equally, making sure that no matter where a product is produced or who produces it, if it’s consumed in the U.S., it is taxed at the same, equal, low 20 percent business rate.”
Brady was talking about the “border adjustability” proposal that would exempt U.S. exports from taxes while imposing a 20 percent levy on imports. Some Republican senators and congressmen are worried that it would not work the way Brady and Ryan envision and could put the U.S. at odds with the World Trade Organization.
“I recognize it’s a considerable change,” Brady conceded. “We’re doing it so we can leapfrog America back into the lead pack in the world as the best place for new jobs. I also recognize that this is tax law, and industries will fight hard to preserve their special tax breaks. But more and more lawmakers up here are understanding taxing equally in America is not only good for consumers, it eliminates any tax reason to move your jobs and headquarters overseas.”
Brady said that the House would not get out ahead of the White House and hold off on unveiling its detailed plan for reworking the entire tax code until President Trump lays down his marker as he is expected to do by month’s end.
“We’ve been working very closely since before” Trump’s inauguration, Brady said.
What House Republicans laid out in their “better way” agenda and what Trump floated on the campaign trail are “80 percent” similar, Brady said.
“We continue to have a lot of good discussions on narrowing the differences. I don’t want to be presumptuous about where the Trump plan” will ultimately land, but he’s confident it will be close to what his panel envisions, Brady said.
