Tax bill aids ‘most,’ not all: Mitch
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Sunday that it’s “impossible” to guarantee the GOP tax bill will give a tax cut to all middle-class Americans, but insisted “most” should see relief next year.
Acknowledging negative polls about the sweeping tax plan Republican senators passed Saturday, McConnell (R-Ky.) remained confident that Americans would like the final product.
“We’ll see how unpopular it is when people start noticing they’re paying less in taxes, the economy’s growing, there are more jobs and opportunity,” he told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
The tax plan will slash corporate rates from 35 percent to 20 percent, lower some individual rates and curb deductions.
But New York Republicans have blasted the plan for likely raising taxes on individuals in high-tax states by eliminating state tax deductions.
Asked whether all middle-class Americans would get a permanent tax break, McConnell said, “It’s impossible to do that.
“You can’t craft any bill that would guarantee no one was in a special category that might get a tax increase,” he said. “What I can tell you is that every segment of taxpayers, every category of taxpayers on average gets significant relief.”
The House and Senate versions will have to be reconciled this week and approved again by both chambers.
President Trump wants to sign a bill into law by Christmas.
“We’re not that far apart,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told “Fox News Sunday” of the bills in the upper and lower chambers. “Fundamentally, for the American public, we double the standard deduction, double the child tax credit and lower the rates.”