Leaders of the conservative House Freedom Caucus are frustrated that Republican leaders haven’t yet released details of their tax overhaul plans, saying they’re concerned that time is running out to deliver on their promise of a revamp.
“At some point you’re going to have to call the play. You’re going to have to get specific,” Representative Mark Meadows, the caucus chairman, said Thursday at a Bloomberg News breakfast. “We can’t answer it if we don’t know what the details are. It’s time to make some decisions and get on with it.”
Meadows said that with a new Dec. 8 deadline to avert a government shutdown and debt default under a deal President Donald Trump struck with congressional leaders on Wednesday, “tax reform needs to happen by Thanksgiving” or it risks failure. “The enemy is time. And time is never defeated.”
The frustrations come as the White House and Republican leaders say they remain hopeful that a comprehensive rewrite of the tax code will pass and get signed into law by the end of 2017. But there’s no legislative text yet, nor are there details on basic questions such as what individual or corporate tax rates will be, let alone more difficult ones such as if and how the tax cuts will be paid for.
“Hope is not a plan. Will someone tell me what the plan is for tax reform?” said Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a caucus co-founder. He said Republicans haven’t received guidance on where tax rates will be set or on questions such as business expensing.
Asked on Thursday in an interview with the New York Times if there’ll be a tax plan released by the end of September, House Speaker Paul Ryan said, “I’ll leave it up to the tax writers” -- House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee -- “to release their template.”
‘Leaders Lead’
The conservative lawmakers said the Freedom Caucus has had many discussions about tax legislation, and are convinced Trump is all-in on it. But they said the group doesn’t have its own tax plan currently, and it should be up to party leaders to offer one.
“Here’s what I learned in the Army: the leader is responsible for everything that happens or fails to happen,” said Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. “That’s what leaders do. Leaders lead.”
Meadows cautioned that “there’s going to be rebellion against everybody” -- including House leadership -- if Republicans finish the year without delivering on any of their major campaign promises.
“If we get to December and we’ve not repealed and replaced Obamacare, we’ve not built the wall, we’ve not done tax reform, let me just tell you it’s not going to be pretty some 8 or 9 months after that in terms of reelection,” he said.
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