The media loves to play up drama between the House and Senate, but the two bodies plan to stick within the same framework when it comes to tax reform legislation, even if there are different parts and policies on each bill, House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday.
"Of course, they will have different policies inside the framework," Ryan, R-Wisconsin, told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" co-anchor Bill Hemmer.
"That's how legislation works. We write a bill, they write a bill. We both pass a bill and go to a conference committee to iron on differences. That's how laws are written all the time. This no different."
The bill, he continued, gives "average taxpayer" in every income group a tax cut, continued Ryan, but the point Republicans are trying to make is that tax cuts are aimed toward the middle income taxpayers.
"The president made it clear he did not want us to lower the rate, the tax rate, on millionaires," said Ryan. "He wanted us to lower the tax rates and provide the most tax relief for middle income taxpayers"
While the analysis shows average taxpayers in all levels with get a break, there may be some who do not get a break, said Ryan as he is "sure there is going to be some wealthy person out there who has a lawyer and accountant that has been able to utilize every loophole and deduction out there."
Such loopholes, he continued, are "disproportionately used by the very wealthy" but with the plan, those are removed in order to lower tax rates across the board to "provide simplicity and fairness the people at the high-end loose the loopholes. We're able to lower tax rates across the board and that tax rate applies to a higher income level."
Hemmer, though, argued that middle class taxpayers will see their taxes go higher once certain deductibles are removed, but Ryan disagreed.
"Here is our postcard and this is what it shows you," said Ryan. "You double the standard exemption. What we're doing for a family, instead of the first $12,000 being tax free the first $24,000 are tax free."
That mean that 90 percent of taxpayers won't have to itemize deductions, said Ryan.
"Then you enjoy lower tax rates all the way up the income bracket until you become a millionaire," he said. "We're saying if you have kids, $1,600 per child tax credit. Half the country is living paycheck to paycheck right now. Other folks are one paycheck away from paycheck to paycheck."
Further, he said, the tax reform legislation "far more bold" than that passed in 1986 by then-President Ronald Reagan.
"The tax cuts are deeper than Ronald Reagan did on an actual basis, a $1.5 trillion tax cut," said Ryan. "More importantly what this is, it's the kind of reform we haven't seen in generations in this country."
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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