House Speaker Paul Ryan declines to say the evolving Republican tax cut plan won’t add to the nation’s already mammoth budget deficits.
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Paul Ryan backed off months of promises that the Republicans’ tax plan won’t add to the nation’s ballooning deficit, declaring Wednesday that the most important goal of an overhaul is economic growth.
Asked whether he would insist the emerging tax plan not pile more billions onto the $20 trillion national debt, Ryan passed up the chance to affirm that commitment. GOP leaders made that “revenue neutral” promise in a campaign manifesto last year and many times since.
“We want pro-growth tax reform that will get the economy going, that will get people back to work, that will give middle-income taxpayers a tax cut and that will put American businesses in a better competitive playing field so that we keep American businesses in America,” Ryan, R-Wis., said. “That is more important than anything else.”
Ryan’s comments signaling possible retreat on a core GOP commitment came amid quickening action on taxes, which Republicans view as their last, best chance to notch a significant accomplishment to take to voters in the 2018 midterm elections following the collapse of their Obamacare repeal drive.
But even as President Donald Trump hunted for Democratic votes for a plan that’s not yet taken shape — and GOP leaders laid out an aggressive timetable to lawmakers — hurdles remained.
A major one is the GOP’s failure to pass a federal budget, which under legislative rules is a prerequisite for a tax plan that can avoid being stalled to death by Democrats in the Senate.
Others involve the contents of the tax blueprint itself, which Ryan and his lieutenants envision as a far-reaching reform plan that would significantly lower rates for corporations and individuals while cleaning up the loopholeridden code.
One problem is that every tax deduction has its own constituency, and Ryan has already ruled out eliminating some of the most popular ones, including deductions for home mortgages and charitable giving.
Deficit hawks also threaten any tax plan that could cost hundreds of billions of dollars without commensurate cuts in federal spending.
Ryan made his comments on taxes as he discussed a range of issues with The Associated Press, including immigration, where he pledged to find a solution for the nearly 800,000 immigrants brought to the country as children and who now live in the U.S. illegally. He declared that removing them all is “not in our nation’s interest,” though he declined to reaffirm his past support for eventual citizenship for the socalled Dreamers.
He said any immigration solution must include border security measures, though he said a wall along the entire southern border, which Trump has repeatedly urged, doesn’t make sense.
On taxes, Trump added to the complications when he declared, at a meeting with a bipartisan group of House members, that taxes on the wealthy would not go down under the GOP plan and might even go up. Although the administration has not provided specifics on its plan, House Republicans have embraced an approach that would lower the top individual rate from 39.6 percent to 33 percent, which would be beneficial to the wealthiest Americans.
Still, Trump declared, “The rich will not be gaining at all with this plan. We are looking for the middle class and we are looking for jobs — jobs being the economy.”
Trump reiterated that he hoped to lower the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, something Ryan has ruled out as impratctical — and an idea the president has backed off from, according to people with knowledge of a meeting he held Tuesdaywith bipartisan senators. The president added, improbably, that the individual rate would be even lower than that.
The list of difficulties has led some analysts to conclude that Congress is likelier to settle on straightforward tax cuts than on full-blown reform — if it passes anything at all.
But Ryan rejected that approach, saying, “It’s not just narrow cuts in taxes that will do the job.”
Referencing tax cuts signed by President George W. Bush, Ryan said, “You can’t just do what Bush did in 2001 and 2003. You have to overhaul the system itself to put American businesses and the American economy in a much more competitive situation.”