Only days into the Trump presidency, the Dow Jones Industrial Average topped 20,000 points for the first time.  The renewed confidence in the U.S. economy was undeniable, and President Trump’s commitment to pro-growth policies had helped build it.  The President and a Republican-led Congress have gone on to deliver substantial regulatory reform, repealing more than a dozen onerous Obama-era regulations in the first 100 days of the Trump Administration.

Now the President and Republicans are embarking on an ambitious but necessary effort to take money out of Washington and put it back into the hands of hardworking Americans.  The new tax framework, announced on September 27, would begin the process of updating our complicated and inefficient tax code.  The goal is to promote U.S. jobs and economic prosperity while allowing Americans to have more take-home pay.

Tax Code Should Protect U.S. Competitiveness

I strongly support this bold plan to simplify the tax code, which would reduce the billions of hours and billions of dollars that Americans spend annually to file their taxes.  The plan includes a number of popular ideas, such as expanding standard deductions, consolidating tax brackets, closing loopholes to make the code fairer, and protecting tax incentives for Americans’ education and retirement.  It would also enable more middle-class families to receive the Child Tax Credit.

I also firmly believe that job creators know how to run their businesses better than Washington bureaucrats do.  Our current tax system hurts American competitiveness by stifling growth, hiring, and innovation.  The Republican-led tax framework seeks to protect this competitiveness by keeping tax rates low for small and family-owned businesses as well as U.S. corporations, which are now subject to the highest corporate tax rate in the world.  Across-the-board reductions would eliminate the need for special deductions and exclusions, and certain tax credits promoting continued growth, such as those for research and development, would be maintained.   

Setting Our Sights on an Economic Renaissance

The new tax plan is not only about keeping Washington out of the way.  It is also about putting Americans back to work, raising their wages, and generating a lasting economic renaissance in this country.  For too long, Americans have been hurt by a tax system that encourages businesses to look overseas for investment and expansion rather than create good-paying jobs and keep profits here at home.  Under the Republican plan, U.S. businesses would have more of an incentive to invest domestically with better rates and a write-off for newly acquired capital assets.

The recently released tax framework is a thoughtful, principled outline intended to help the American worker and ensure the continued vitality of the American economy – the largest, most powerful economy in the world.   This framework is an important starting point for new tax reform legislation in Congress, which will be debated and improved as it moves through the committee process.  The President’s campaign pledge for tax reform helped spur market growth and drive the Dow to record highs.  Imagine how much of an impact the enactment of thorough, meaningful tax reform could make on Americans’ lives and future success