U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-7) released a video Tuesday in which she discussed her efforts to bring tax relief to Tennessee families and small businesses.
Blackburn is running for the Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Bob Corker (R-TN), who also issued a news release Tuesday morning on efforts by Republicans in Congress to pass a tax reform plan. The House has passed the plan and the Senate is expected to vote this week.
A key element in the plan is lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. The U.S. currently has the highest corporate tax rate in the world among countries with advanced economies.
In her video, Blackburn said:
Government never gets enough of the taxpayers’ revenue. The appetite, the insatiable appetite that government has for your money never ceases.
To achieve tax relief is vital. And I think that keeping it to a focus of flatter rates for individual filers. Fairness in business taxes. And small businesses being able to use the rate that is there for corporations.
That lower rate. 20% rate. That gives them more money to spend on that business to build their dream. And then also simpler, it is ridiculous that thousands of hours and billions of dollars are spent by individuals and small businesses complying with the US tax code.
You get the burden of government off somebody’s back and out of their pocketbook and what do you do? You free them up to dream those big dreams. You free them up to innovate.
In his news release Tuesday morning, Corker highlighted his recent interview on “Fox & Friends” in which he discussed the trigger mechanism he is advocating that would roll back tax cuts partially or entirely if projected economic growth is not realized. Corker, who is a member of the Senate Budget Committee and has frequently raised concerns about the national debt, said:
I think all of us want to get across the finish line, and we are trying to make this bill one that not only serves our immediate interests as a nation but also our long-term interests. Everybody is working feverishly right now to try to get to that place.
For the last 13 days, Brian, we have been working with the finance committee and over the Thanksgiving holiday… very feverishly with the White House – both [White House National Economic Council Director] Gary Cohn, [Treasury Secretary] Steve Mnuchin, who was in my office yesterday, [White House Chief of Staff] John Kelly, and others – to try to create a backstop, or a trigger mechanism, that to the extent the growth estimates that have been laid out aren’t achieved, we don’t pass on even greater debt to our children. We are working on that right now and hopefully we’re going to be successful.
The Senate Budget Committee cleared the plan later Tuesday, with Corker voting in favor it. Corker issued a statement after the vote, saying, “After agreeing in principle with Senate leadership, members of the finance committee, and the administration on a trigger mechanism to ensure greater fiscal responsibility should economic growth estimates not be realized, I voted today to advance this important piece of legislation. While we are still working to finalize the details, I am encouraged by our discussions.”
