In visit to Ohio, Ryan says tax overhaul long overdue

Noting he NEW ALBANY — had just gotten his driver’s license the last time Congress overhauled the nation’s tax system, House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday insisted lawmakers will act soon even as he deals with deep divisions in his own Republican Party.

During a roundtable discussion Wednesday at a central Ohio contract packaging plant, Ryan focused on reducing the number of tax brackets to three, eliminating tax breaks and simplifying the code to cut rates for individuals.

“In every generation you have an opportunity,” Ryan, 47, said. “The last time we did this — this being, reform our tax system — was the year I got my driver’s license: 1986. We have not done this is a long, long time and it’s high time in coming.”

President Donald Trump has proposed reducing the top corporate tax rate by 20 percentage points and allowing private business owners to claim the new lower rate for their take-home pay. It would whittle the number of tax brackets for individuals to three from seven, lower the top tax rate to 35 percent from 39.6 percent and double the standard amount taxpayers could deduct.

The proposal would significantly add to the deficit and eliminated some popular tax breaks enjoyed by millions of families and businesses. House Republicans and the Trump administration have already called for getting rid of the deduction for state and local taxes, a big tax break that benefits millions, especially people living in Democratic-controlled states with high local taxes such as New York, New Jersey and California.

Several Republicans in those states already have announced their opposition to scrapping that tax break.

Ryan used the appearance at Accel Inc., a manufacturer in New Albany, Ohio, to promote overhaul of the tax code.

“We are taxing businesses, employers, jobs more than 50 percent in many cases,” he said. “How can we compete with the likes of all the rest of the world when we tax our job creators and our employers at much, much higher tax rates than our competitors tax theirs? This is why we have got to get tax reform.”

Key Republicans WASHINGTON — on Wednesday flatly rejected growing calls for an independent investigator or a special panel to probe possible ties between Russia and President Donald Trump’s campaign in the wake of Trump’s abrupt firing of FBI Director James Comey.

While Democrats escalated their investigative demands — and threatened to stall Senate business as a protest — following Comey’s firing Tuesday, the Republicans who control both the House and Senate insisted that existing investigations suffice.

Notably, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., said his panel should continue its ongoing investigation without outside interference.

“My committee has got the jurisdiction and the responsibility to investigate this. We are going to do that,” Burr said.

Leaving no doubt about his party’s intentions, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell started the day on the Senate floor by declaring that “partisan calls should not delay the considerable work” of Burr’s committee. That view was reiterated at a private meeting of Republican senators later Wednesday.

McConnell’s words put his fellow Republicans on notice not to waver.

“Too much is at stake,” McConnell said.

The next major signal of how Republicans will proceed could come next week. Comey has been invited to testify Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Four alternatives to an Intelligence Committee investigation are being floated, though none has picked up much GOP support. Lawmakers from both parties have suggested creating a special select committee in Congress, akin to the Senate panel that was established in 1973 to investigate Watergate-related allegations, or the House-Senate committee in the 1980s that investigated the Iran-Contra scandal.

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said Wednesday that he would support the creation of a special select committee, and a few other Republicans have not ruled out the idea.

“I’m not saying yes, but not saying no,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.

Other lawmakers seek a special commission, such as the blue-ribbon 9/11 Commission, which was composed of members outside of Congress.

A Senate bill to establish an independent commission was introduced in January and has collected 27 supporters, all of them Democrats.

Separately, some Democrats want the Justice Department to appoint a “special counsel” to lead an investigation. And, in what seems the least likely option, a few Democrats want to pass legislation to authorize an “independent counsel” similar to the one who investigated former President Bill Clinton and members of his Cabinet.

Citing fears that Comey may have been “fired to stifle the FBI’s Russia investigation,” California Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Wednesday joined other lawmakers in proposing the appointment of an outside investigator of some kind. Feinstein’s call might carry special weight, as she is the Senate Judiciary Committee’s senior Democrat.

“Americans expect to have faith in the ability of the Justice Department to carry out a high-level investigation without interference from the White House,” Feinstein said in a statement.

A longtime member of the Senate Intelligence Committee as well, Feinstein said she planned to work closely with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a fellow Judiciary Committee member, on legislation to authorize the appointment of an independent counsel.

On a separate track, while writing the independent counsel bill, Feinstein urged Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to proceed with “the appointment of a special counsel who should be far removed from the politics of this place.”

But McConnell said a new investigation “could only serve to impede the current work being done to not only discover what the Russians may have done (and) ... to see that it doesn’t occur again.”

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana echoed Burr that the Senate Intelligence Committee is sufficient to address Russia’s influence in the 2016 election.

“I think the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee is doing a great job,” Cassidy said. “No one has complained about their work.”