Sen. Rand Paul and President Donald Trump haven't always seen eye-to-eye, but when it comes to tax cuts, Paul said they are "on the same wavelength."
"The bigger the better," the Kentucky Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" Tuesday. "If we want economic growth we have to be bold and lower the corporate tax rate as much as we can as well as individual rates."
Worldwide, corporate income tax rates cost only a half or a third of what they are in the United States, Paul pointed out.
"Our rate is 35 percent; Ireland's is 12, now going to 8," said Paul. "If we want to compete and not lose American businesses oversea we have to lower our rate."
Paul said, though, that he is concerned Washington's establishment is "too timid" and "afraid of their own shadows" to do a real tax cut.
"When [President Ronald] Reagan cut taxes, we got growth in spades," Paul said. "We can do it again. The president has seen a huge rally in the stock market. We can have real economic growth if we really cut taxes."
Paul has commented repeatedly that the middle class was not being helped in the current plan, but told Fox News that Trump has "looked at his people and said make it so. He says [he] will not put forward a tax cut that doesn't help the middle class.
He said he is glad he brought the middle class issue up with Trump and the administration and with Republican leadership, as "we don't want to make a mistake here."
"I think that a lot of the problems in the past with not getting things done around here is we aren't paying attention to what we're doing enough," said Paul. "The tax cut has to be a tax cut for everybody. The president agrees with me. His team is now working on it. And as long as the details reflect what the president is saying, I will be for it."
Republicans, meanwhile, need to believe in the benefits of a "big, bold tax cut," said Paul.
"What I tell people that are worried about the debt. I'm one of them," said Paul. "Cut spending. Don't raise somebody else's taxes to balance your tax cut. Cut taxes, grow the economy and if you don't like the debt, vote to cut spending. I have bills to reform the entitlements that would help save us trillions of dollars if those so-called deficit hawks that don't like tax cuts come to sign onto my bills that would reform the entitlements and save trillions. That's what we ought to be doing."
Currently, the tax plan calls for a 25 percent corporate tax rate, but Paul said he agrees with Trump that it should be even lower.
Paul also said he considers Trump a "personal friend" and thinks he is "doing great things for the country."
"I think that on the healthcare, the thing he did last week has the potential to be bigger than even all of Obamacare getting people in expensive insurance," said Paul. "Obamacare got people insurance, but it was really expensive and cost taxpayers a lot of money. What President Trump did last week didn't cost a penny and allows millions of people to join associations to get insurance across state lines. It has the potential to completely transform the insurance market."
Paul also said that he was at the White House last week and spent about an hour in the Oval Office with Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and Chief of Staff John Kelly, and got the impression that they were a "sophisticated team working together."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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