Senator schumer and Senate FinanceCommittee Ranking member ron wydan talked about their concerns at a news conference. This is 25 minutes. Senator schumer ok. Good afternoon. Yes, it is afternoon. I want to thank our great Ranking Member of the finance committee, senator wyden, for being here with us today. Well, theres a lot to uncap in this outline. Lets get right to it. For the last several months we democrats have been united in arguing that not one penny of tax relief should go to the top 1 . That any tax reform plan should be fiscally responsible. So as not to put important programs like medicare at risk. Under this plan, the wealthiest americans and wealthiest corporations make out like bandits while middle class americans are left holding the bag. When donald trump was talking about this plan over the last few days, he talked about focusing on the middle class and not helping the wealthy. The plan is a major disappointment because it so deviates from everything the president said. Hes walking the walk sorry, hes talking the talk, but this plan shows he is not walking the walk. Just look at the way this is plan is a boon for the wealthy. Corporations have hired lawyers and lobbyists to exploit every single loophole to avoid paying their fair share in taxes. They get their rate cut from 35 all the way to 20 . Now, will this result in hiring workers . Their track record says no. For big corporations, corporation profits right now are way up. But wages are not. Corporations have plowed all that money into c. E. O. Bonuses, stock buybacks, dividends for their shareholders. They are plush with money already. Theres no proof, no real beli, no real argument that they are going to take this new money and put it into creating jobs. It may be different for Small Businesses. Were open to tax breaks for mall businesses. Now, will at least these corporations pay for their massive Corporate Tax cut by closing egregious corporate loopholes that help multinational corporations avoid paying the fair share of their taxes . Not in this outline. There is no indication, none at all, that under this framework that the Corporate Tax cut will be offset by corporate loophole closures. What about on the individual side . Multimillionaires with estates over 11 million, they get a tax break, too. By repealing the estate tax we close only for the very wealthy, republicans are giving 269 billion to the richest. 2 . The president said he didnt want to give tax breaks to the rich, then he should this afternoon denounce repeal of the estate tax which goes exclusively to the rich. When you repeal it. By slashing the top rate, this was an unpleasant surprise, top rate goes down from 39. 6 to 5. The very wealthiest of americans get even a bigger tax break. The high end, 1 , they are doing great. God bless them. Were glad. They dont need a tax break. Middle class people do. So look at what this plan oes. It gives huge tax cuts to the wealthiest and biggest corporations and socks it to the middle class. Eliminating state and local deductibility is a blow to the wallet of millions of middle class taxpayers across the country, in states like new york and california. Doubling the standard deduction, and eliminating the personal deduction will not make up for the loss that middle class people, particularly in the suburbs, will not make up for the loss when you eliminate state and local deductibility. What i say to the president and the republicans, last time you tried to eliminate state and local deductibility, you had to eliminate that. Same thing will happen now. Lots of republican congressmen in states like new york and california come from districts where the elimination of state and local deductibility hurts their core constituency. Even with doubling the standard deduction. So leader mcconnell and speaker ryan argue this is a boon to wealthy taxpayers in blue states. Its not true. Its just not true. Heres another amazing thing. We dont know where this came from. They raised the bottom rate from 10 to 12 . The lowest rate on the poorest and working class americans. So what the plan does is the top rate on the wealthiest comes down and the bottom rate on working class families goes up. What kind of plan is this . Republicans will argue that they double the standard deduction so it covers the raise in the lower rate. Bunk. By repealing the personal exemption, republicans are once again raising taxes on middle class and working americans. A family of two on this framework with a Household Income of 45,000, could see thr bi increase by 1,000. Thats not helping the middle class. They are using fine print, hidden tax hikes on the middle class, in order to give huge cuts for the wealthy. The plan will add anywhere from 5 trillion to 7 trillion to our deficit. If it passes, it will only be a matter of time before the republicans start crying out the deficits so big. We have to cut Social Security. We have to cut medicare. Americans beware. Thats what they do. Dramatically lower taxes on the wealthy, do it in an irresponsible way, and then they say the big deficit we just created forces us to cut medicare and social ecurity. This is all part of the hard right agenda. Cut taxes for the rich. Blow up the deficit. Decimate medicare and Social Security. The tax plan makes clear republicans are circling the wagons to do what they have tried to do for decades, go after Social Security and medicare. To be clear this hasnt always been the case. Going back to the last time when we reformed our tax code, no less of an authority than james baker, former republican treasury secretary said, quote, we must not let tax revenues decline and worsen the deficit. In other words, tax reform must be revenue neutral and should be judged on its own merits. Lets call that the jim baker ule. Tax reform must be revenue neutral judged on its own merits. No dynamic scoring. No fake math. The republicans used to believe in that. Middle class americans deserve tax relief. We democrats want to provide it. But as we have said, tax reform should go through regular order, it should help the middle class, not the top 1 , and should not increase our deficit. Let me just say one more thing. By trying to put a plan through in a partisan way through reconciliation, the republicans are going to have the same problem with tax reform that they had with health care. They are going to decidedly push an unpopular plan, 70 of americans do not want tax breaks for the wealthy or big corporations. They are going to try to push that through. Health care ultimately failed, repeal of health care, the republican trumpcare, ultimately failed because the public was against it. The public will be equally strong against this plan that is so perverse in helping the wealthy and hurting the middle lass and it will fail. My great friend, our tax expert, senator wyden. Senator wyden senator schumer has said it very well. Let me highlight a couple of additional points. The first is what has been released today makes a total mockery out of the president s pledge that he wanted tax relief to be for the working class and it wouldnt be for the wealthy. The fact is we know the ultrawealthy get 100 billion handout each time the Corporate Tax rate is cut by just one percentage point. Back of the napkin estimates show that the trump plan on corporate side will result in 1. 8 trillion in tax cuts for the multinationals and the powerful c. E. O. s. Then lets turn to the passthrough issue that the two of us feel so strongly about. This completely new, lunar crater sized new loophole, in effect takes a page out of gordon geckos playbook. Passthrough status democrats have said again and again is enormously important to small usinesses. A cleaner, a garage, a restaurant. Thats not what the republicans are talking about. They are talking about a whole new set of wealthy individuals being able to dodge their taxes through this new provision. The early returns on this one ive an approximate estimate of 660 billion in tax cuts to maralagos most loyal members. Thats the passthrough provision. And through Shell Companies and tax shelters, welltodo people, the richest in america, will be able to disguise wages as business income to avoid higher income tax rates and paying their fair share of payroll taxes. We want to make clear because all this tax lingo is kind of eye glazing stuff. Payroll taxes fund Social Security and medicare. Programs that the American People and the two of us feel so strongly about. This passthrough tax dodge jeopardizes those core programs. Medicare and Social Security as we know it today. Finally, the president lowers taxes as the leader indicated, for americas wealthiest individuals. To add another 2 trillion to the heaping pile of tax cuts for the fortunate few. Let me turn now to the middle class. This is particularly important. Under the president s plan, larger families in america are going to see the most harm. Thats because republicans are getting rid of key exemptions. Personal and dependent that give more relief to moms and dads and their kids. Now, republicans have said they are going to double the standard deduction. This is a massive step backwards, number one, from multiple bipartisan deals to triple the standard deduction that actually puts hundreds of dollars back into each and every middle class paycheck. Coupled with the elimination of the personal exemption this is a recipe for serious inequality in our code. I want to just amplify for a moment on the leaders important point with respect to the republicans. They are going to be all about the country saying that they are doubling the standard deduction. They are playing a shell game with respect to middle class families in america. What they give with one hand they take away with another. While the republicans say they are going to increase the standard deduction, at the same ime they propose eliminating these vital personal and dependent exemptions. What a family of four would gain with respect to an extra 12,000 in standard deduction, they imultaneously lose more than 16,000 in personal and dependent exemption. Folks, that is a net tax increase. We have made it clear, senator schumer and i, together said that the focus was going to be on middle class. The focus was going to be on ensuring that we had regular order and we had fiscal responsibility. As of now the republicans are walking on the history of successful bipartisan tax reform. Mention was made of the baker rule. That is you work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle. This proposal walks back the three principles we have outlined, which frankly, do not even go as far as Ronald Reagan and jim baker went in 1986. And we hope as senator schumer said, that theyll start walking back some of this stuff quickly. Senator schumer ready for your questions. Just to be clear, you believe this would raise taxes on lower income americans . Senator schumer it raises the rates on lower income amilies. If you are family of four, you pay more because you lose the individual deductions for each individual. If youre from a state where you have relatively high taxes, you lose the state and local. Yes, a large percentage of middle class families would pay more taxes. Looking at this plan i think almost every wealthy family would get a big break. Senator, with unemployment at about 4. 3 or whatever it is, seemingly relatively low, you might make the argument that the middle class doesnt need a tax cut, either. My question is, what do you think the middle class actually wants . Senator schumer first of all, if you talk to middle class folks, they do not want tax breaks for the very wealthy and they do not want tax breaks for big corporations. They want some relief themselves. And thats what should have been done in this plan. As i said, the president talked the talk. He said were going to aim this at the middle class. He aint walking the walk. This is aimed at the wealthiest people in america. We democrats have all talked about fiscal responsibility. Not increasing the deficit. This is a 5 trillion hole in the deficit. The three democrats i believe think tax should go to the middle class. There are things we could agree on. We believe Small Business should get some kind of tax break. We could look at that. But i believe even the three democrats who didnt sign this bill are going to look at this plan and have a lot of problems with it. Whats the language about aking sure the top rate didnt apply to the wealthy . Do you take that at face value . Senator schumer not in their plan. Here is the amazing thing. You are a Big Hedge Fund or fancy law firm, youll pay no Corporate Tax. Then instead of paying an individual rate of 39 or this plan, 35. You you pay 25. Its a dramatic huge trillion dollar tax break for the wealthiest. Middle class people cant take advantage of this. Senator wyden let me tell you whats happened in the finance committee. We began pointing out the inequity of this passthrough provision months and months ago. We were told by the secretary of treasury that it would be corrected. It has been months since they said they would correct it. That was the first thing i looked at today. I said, well, they are doing something else. Maybe, just maybe, they are going to honor the pledge that they made months ago to correct it. They still havent, number one. Number two, we just received testimony recently in the Senate Finance committee that it is very, very hard, if not impossible, to stop the ripoffs in the kind of proposal that they have, in effect, laid out once more today. Senator schumer the bottom line is, just about everything that the president , treasury secretary mnuchin, gary cohn is not in this plan. They hope they can fool the American People. We are not going to let them. This plan is our best ammunition what they say and what they are doing are different. In the next few months, were going to be talking about this every day. And the American People are not going to like this plan when they learn of it. Is there room for negotiation . Senator schumer first of all, our letter said three things. O tax breaks for the 1 . They violated that. Second, dont increase the deficit. They violated that. And the third, lets do things in a bipartisan way. Which i think every one of the democrats, 45plus three all agree with. On working together. I think they realize just like with health care that what they are doing is so out of the mainstream, their wealthy contributors and donors love it. The hard right loves it. If they went to reconciliation they would have to move the plan somewhat to the middle and help the middle class because thats where democrats are, and they have to forsake their big contributors, Koch Brothers and everybody like that. They dont want to do that. The problem is, if they think they can fool people, they are not going to succeed. The plan is totally different than what they say about the plan. On the question of no deductions for state and local taxes sen. Schumer i do see some of that. In the house, there are a lot of republic congressman that will be adversely affected. Take long island. You have a family, a teacher and Police Officer that 150,000. What they pay between their property tax and income tax a lot. If they dont get the deduction, doubling the standard deduction is not going to come close to it. Youre going to have Congress Members who say i cant vote for this because it raises taxes on my core constituency. I was part of it. We heard in the Committee Number one, members are already talking about how this could be seen as double taxation and of course republicans see that as a fundamental principle of the Senate Republican economic that is number one. Number two. This is not breaking into just a blue statered state kind of issue. Were going to see in big swaths of the country. Not just one or two places. Were, who are paying pretty significant local taxes. Note are going to be saying so fast, especially when they look at some of the other things. Health care is kind of a personal thing that people deal with on a daily basis. It has to be something that people feel confused by. I was wondering how you keep this in the conversation toator schumer in talking the people around my state and looking at the surveys, if you ask people on an issue by issue basis, people want a reduction in prices. New york republican plan, which smallsed to do gave a break to the middle class and the huge break to the wealthy. In 2016, that doesnt work anymore. Point. Wyden on that because what the leader is saying what we all here, how does this relate to me, the hardworking middleclass family . When republicans proposed increasing the standard deduction, and at the same time eliminate the personal independent exemptions, you are going to have a lot of families, particularly large ones, and republicans say they are the champions of family values. Those folks are going to have a net tax increase. What the leader and i are saying is that out there, when we both go to our communities all over our states, people are going to start taking out a little sharp pencil. Leadere numbers that the and i have laid out, a lot of those middleclass folks, particularly with big families, will pay more. Senator schumer its visceral when youre in the middle class and this tax bill wants to raise your taxes three to 5,000. One other thing, and i think people are aware of this. Social security and medicare are at risk. Its going to so dramatically increase the deficit and Social Security and medicare are going to be under far greater risk, and thats what republicans have done. Right after george bush did a massive tax cut, he said lets cut Social Security. We have a big deficit. Thank you, everybody. President trump travel to indianapolis to speak about the republican plan to overhaul the federal tax code. Before boarding to leave for the indiana event, the president made comments to reporters on several issues, including about the alabama u. S. Senate primary runoff, health care, the nfl, and the situation in puerto co