Congressman Dave Brat on Wednesday criticized the Senate for its inability to pass healthcare legislation, saying, "the leadership over there is in for some trouble."
A guest on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" program, the conservative Virginia Republican pretty much mocked Senate Republicans for fumbling multiple times on trying to repeal and replace Obamacare.
"On the Senate side, the leadership over there is in for some trouble," Brat told C-SPAN host John McArdle.
"They couldn't even get — after they voted on it 50 times over seven years — and they couldn't get a vote through on any form of Obamacare repeal," Brat said. "They had a skinny bill — more like a Madison Avenue marketing tagline. What is a skinny bill? … They couldn't even get a tagline passed. It's embarrassing."
Brat, an economics professor turned tea party darling, was elected in 2014 after coming out of nowhere to defeat then House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the district's Republican primary.
Now Brat figures to play an influential role in tax reform, the plans of which hit Wednesday.
The House Freedom Caucus member stands with chair, Rep. Mark Meadows, on the red lines of 20 percent corporate tax rates and 25 percent small business rates, but says conservatives are nervous on the offsets.
"We're a few trillion short … so we're nervous that tax rates won't go down far enough to get economic growth," Brat said.
Brat cited the need for big tax cuts to bring back the glory years of John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, both of whom spurred economic growth of 4 percent to 5 percent through tax cuts.
"Once you get the economy growing, people (are) gonna get back in a good mood again," Brat said. The "80s is Van Halen and all positive music, back when we used to smile. And now everybody's just (in) political warfare right now."
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