Growth, pro worker, comprehensive tax reform and i think my credential on this issue has been consistent about growing the economy. Let me highlight principles that we believe must be adhered to in tax reform. Our number one priority is moving the dial to help the middle class and their families prosper. Creating jobs, boosting wages and giving hard working middle class americans the relief they need to get ahead. The key component to this first test is any tax reform must place workers first. The benefits should not skew towards the wealthy. In fact we believe the wealthy should not receive any tax cuts in these efforts and i would say with confidence the top rated 396 should remain. Instead tax reform should be focused on raising Living Standards of middle class citizens. Any package we support must be fiscally responsible and revenue neutral as determined in a conventional revenue estimate by the joint committee on taxation. We have been hearing that tax cuts pay for themselves but economists both conservative and aggressives tell us that is not the case. Im delighted today as one who has read his book that Bruce Bartlet who worked for president reagan and congressman kemp will help to make that case. We have now all seen the republican tax framework or at least in part and what they claim, they say it was about the middle class, it instead appears to be a disguised tax cut for the wealthy. Yesterday at the white house during our meeting with the members the president promised to all in the room that under his tax plan, the rich will not benefit. Thats a direct quote. I scribbled it down on my schedule card. Well, it only took one day for speaker ryan and leader mcconnell to break that promise. The republicans lowered the top rate to 35 . Eliminate the state tax and amt and create a loophole for the wealthy by lowering the pass through rate to 25 . This is likely to award huge tax cuts to the wealthy. One witness today estimated this amounts to a 220,000 per year cut for an average millionaire. Its time to move and really get together on a bipartisan basis and negotiate a middle class tax reform package. Im honored to be joined by members of our ways and Means Committee and Leadership Team and always a privilege to recognize the distinguished house leader nancy pelosi for an opening statement. Thank you very much Ranking Member neil for hosting this today. But also for your great leadership on doing just that. Promoting tax reform that creates growth, creates good paying jobs, raises wages and reduces the deficit. Today we gather on the need for real tax reform. What the republicans are putting out its not tax reform, its tax cuts for special interest in the high end. For real tax reform instead that puts the middle class first and to spotlight republicans trickle down to hide the true cost of the middle class for the wealthiest 1 in our country. Democrats have always been willing to engage in bipartisan tax reform. But the Ryan Mcconnell framework gives away the store to the wealthiest while sticking the middle class with the bill. Republicans are stuck on the same tired trickled down agenda as always. Democrats again will continue to demand job creating wage raising tax reform with not one penny in breaks for the wealthiest 1 . At the heart of the republican strategy is the fuzzy math of dynamic scoring. That tells families that tax cuts for the wealthy pay for themselves. That is indeed deceptive. We know the cost will be catastrophic for our budget and for the future of our working people in our country and explode the deficit adding trillions of dollars, it will use it will be a back door attempt to devastate the bed rock initiatives families rely on. The swindle of the American People selling the same blueprint that did not create jobs and only increase the deficit. It will it triggers a massive opportunity cost. Blocking critical domestic job creating investments such as infrastructure, education and job training which brings money to the treasury. Nothing brings more money than investing in education. Early childhood, k through 12. Our education. Post grad, all that. And lifetime learning. If we want to reduce the deficit, we should increase our investments in education, not in tax cuts for the high end. Behind republicans vague framework and deceptive math the American People find billionaires first tax plan that fails the middle class. Today were honored to be joined by a distinguished board of experts on taxes who will share their insight on tax reform. Im so honored to be sitting here with our ways and Means Committee under the leadership of mr. Neil and the ranking on the subcommittee for this subject as well as the other members. We are honored to welcome Bruce Bartlet who helped draft the 1981 tax cut while on the staff of representative jack camp. Youre both heroes to us here. Heather boushay. Seth hanlin. Xi wang, center on budget and policy priorities. Our members are eager to hear your wisdom. I yield back to mr. Neal. I would like to yield time to the Ranking Member on taxation which i served on for i think about 14 years. Thank you very much. Thank you leader pelosi. Yesterday at the white house i urged the president to move forward immediately with a permanent solution for those children who were brought here undocumented and who we call d. R. E. A. M. E. R. Ers. I agree with the president of microsoft that we dont need business as usual here. That we need to put the humanitarian needs of these 800,000 children ahead of us on the legislative calender before any tax bill. In the face of the problem that President Trump created by cancelling daca we need action now. Since the republicans set the house calender and today have indicated this tax bill will be in front of our committee within 30 days, having learned nothing from the secrecy and no amendment approach they took in the Health Care Repeal fiasco. We need the expertise of the panel gathered here. In short, President Trump says one thing and republicans here in the congress do another. What they say is in todays tax plan is not in that plan. The biggest tax cut ever everyone will be happy President Trump says. Well, the sue pearltives dont match the specifics of this outline. The future of their bill i believe depends how quickly the truth catches up with a lie. From what we can see already, the republican blueprint is written in red ink, trillions of dollars of red ink, despite repeated claims of no tax cuts for the rich, i took the same notes as mr. Neal took. This plan cuts the top tax rate but increases the lower tax rate. It eliminates the estate tax. Expands a loophole that will line the pockets of the trump family and while professing concern for companies offshoring profits and jobs their proposal creates a new incentive to ship jobs off shore a. And having paid little or no taxes. As far as working families, some will see an increase in taxes under this plan. A lack of Trump University degree or Republican Health care plan the gap between what they say they do and what they do is immen immense. This plan called the deep 6 the big 6 plan needs to be deep 6 claiming that these tax breaks will magically pay for themselves is as credible as the mexicans paying for the wall. In fact, this means trillions of additional federal borrowing from the chinese and saudis and others that will jeopardize medicare, medicaid, Social Security, education and other Vital Services and thats why words from you are so very important today. Thank you leader and Ranking Member neal. Thanks very much. The leader has recognized the witnesses. So with that i would like to hear from heather boushay and we would leave enough time after the hoping statements. So that members could ask questions. Thank you Ranking Member neal and leader pelosi and everyone else for inviting all of us here to speak today about tax reform. Nothing could be more important. In my testimony i will discuss the substance of tax reform in the context of one of the Biggest Challenges facing the american economy. Slow Income Growth and rising inequality. My comments, the focus of reform should be the Living Standards of American Families particularly working in middle class families. Economic growth should benefit americas working families and for too long it has not. [ inaudible ] shes lost your mike. Three key points. Tax reform should raise revenue. [ inaudible ] its going in and out. Lets try this. Tax reform should raise revenue, it should not lose revenue. The purpose of the tax system as with Public Policy is to support the Living Standards of American Families. We need revenues to finance the investments in children in families, the social Insurance Programs and many other basic governmental functions that support our quality of life. However, if tax reform becomes simply tax cuts as this proposal appears to be, congress will need to reverse those cuts in the future or the resulting revenue losses will force cuts to core programs. Second, given the dramatic divergence of income grow tax reform should provide no net tax cut for the richest americans. Instead, any economic gains from a forum should benefit working and middle class families. It is up to congress to determine who the beneficiaries of reform are. Well designed tax reform can generate economic gains with which to improve the standard of living for American Families. We need serious estimates of the impact of reform of after tax incoming across the income distribution. It should be a standard of reform that the economic gains benefit working and middle class families, not the wealthy. Third, tax reform should preserve and expand the evidence fact refundable tax credits that help working families while realizing these do not eliminate the investment in programs and services that help families thrive. Tax reform will maintain and expand investments in the Child Tax Credit and earned income tax credit but Congress Still needs to make direct investments in other programs and services that help children thrive and helps families stay attached to the labor force. Do not allow the inclusion of tax cuts for working and middle class families to distract you. In a revenue losing package, the spending cuts are tax increases necessary to finance these benefits will in all likelihood make these families worse off. This is especially likely if the price of expanded benefits for working and middle class families is additional benefits for higher income families. Reform that meets these requirements that ive outlined would increase Living Standards and thus deliver equitable growth. It would ensure americans continue to benefit from essential government programs. Eliminating loopholes in the tax system and using the resulting economic gains would provide a lift to those incomes have grown the least in recent decades. Thank you. Mr. Hanlin. Thanks heather. Thank you. Its a great honor too be here. My remarks will focus on exposing two of the myths that we hear President Trump tax agenda. Focused on helping the middle class and Small Businesses. The plan that President Trump and Republican Leaders are releasing is centered on five tax cuts benefiting people at the the top of the income scale. The return of the top rate under george w. Bush, a new loophole for passthrough businesses, repeal of the estate tax and alternative minimum tax. The tax cuts in the trump gop plan would cost 6 trillion on a gross basis and no plausible way to offset the windfall the wealthy will receive. If theyre taxes are going down, deficits are going up or taxes on everyone else are going up. In broad strokes, the plan is similar to last years better way plan which added about 3 trillion to deficits over the next decade with the top 1 getting 99. 6 of the net tax cuts when the plan was fully phased in. How does the new plan affect middle class and working families . As to the director impact far from clear. The plan almost doubles the standard deduction but other parameters cut the other way including raising the tax rate and repealing personal exemptions. Consider a family of four. Raising the standard deduction as they propose gives an additional 11,300 but without personal exemptions they lose four deductions totaling more than 16,000. The trump gop plan eliminates most itemized deductions including those for state and local taxes, for very high medical expenses and for major casualty losses including losses from disasters like hurricanes. The plan is vague on a lot of other things. Will their plan tax Single Parents by eliminating head of household status . Will they eliminate credits and deductions for tuition . Families need to know how the plan will affect them at the end of the day. Regardless whether they receive a modest tax cut themselves which is the best they can do, working families lose out under the trump gop plan. Thats because the revenue lost would undercut investments in the economy and put medicare, medicaid and Social Security at much greater risk. The second thing is the trump gop plan is focused on Small Businesses. But their Small Business tax cut is a giant loop hope for very wealthy Business Owners that leaves out Small Businesses. It caps the rate on income from s corporations, partnerships and llcs at 25 . A huge tax cut for people who own these entities and now in the 36 tax bracket. Among the Small Businesses whose owners would see their tax rate slashed, the trump organization, the big law and accounting firms, the most lucrative lobbying firms here in d. C. And every hedge fund or private equity firm, the last people in the country who should be getting a tax cut. 79 of the so cowealled trump loophole goes to billionaires who are with vast majority of Small Business owners. A new loophole that will cause more unfairness. More high earners can disguise their earning as profits. As with Corporate Tax cuts which our next witness will discuss, the new loophole wont create jobs or lose wages. Kansas eliminated pass throughs in 2012 as part of what was called a real live experiment in tax policy. What followed was cuts to education, downgrade of the States Credit rating and slowed job growth in the neighboring states. Kansas repealed it earlier this year. Congress should heed the results and avoid similar tax cuts like those contained in the trump gop tax plan. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Wong. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. The big six plan like Many Republican tax plans has deep cuts to the Corporate Tax rate along with a host of other tax cuts tilted towards the top. Thats a stark contrast with the president s promise to focus on raising the incomes of the working class. A gap between their promises and their policies, republican lawmakers are making misleading claims about who tax cuts help saying they trickle down to ordinary workers. The bulk of Corporate Tax cuts go to wealthy investors and ceos. Worse it could hurt workers and most americans. For example, reversing his campaign tax promise, President Trump supports a territorial tax system. Thats a u. S. Corporate tax rate of 0 on u. S. Multinationals foreign profits. It would give them more incentive to shift their profits off shore and to the extent it encouraged them to move Real Investments off shore it could hurt the wages of u. S. Workers. Further, low and middle income people could end up picking up the tab for tax cuts for the corporations and the wealthy. Key senators planning a bill that would lose 1. 5 trillion in revenue over ten years. Many republican lawmakers have pointed to existing predicted deficits and debt to justify their proposals for cuts to medicaid, snap and other programs that help families afford basic needs. And to justify cuts and appropriations that include funding for education, for environmental protection, safety and a host of other domestic priorities. Revenue losing tax cuts would place these priorities under even greater threat of future cuts. That would leave workers and most middle income americans worse off. Now, thats not an outcome that republican policy makers are likely wanting to advertise so instead they may try to hide or explain away their tax cuts for the wealthy in three main ways. First they could use budget gimmicks like dynamic scoring or temporary tax cuts to try to hide the effect of their plan. And second, they could try to explain away or base leslie criticize estimates of congresss official score keepers. We saw some lawmakers dismiss cbo sfiestimates as fake news. Some senators are saying their tax cut bill will generate a 1 trillion of additional revenues although official estimates arent likely to show anything near that amount of growth. Misrepresentations will not alter the reality of a tax plan that hurts rather than helps ordinary workers. Im looking forward to discussing these issues with you. Mr. Bartlet. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the republican theory of taxation and its impact on growth. I know a bit about this because i invented a lot of these theories. 40 years ago i was working here in the house of representatives for congressman jack kemp and one day he was very interested in cutting taxes which was needed in the 1970s because we had a lot of bracket. People were pushed up into higher tax brackets almost daily and he we were interested in the tax cut that had been implemented by president s kennedy and johnson back in the mid 1960s and one day jack said to me why dont we introduce the kennedy tax cut all over again. So i said okay, thats fine. So i talked to various people such as Arthur Laffer and other luminaries of economics and we came up with a piece of legislation that senator bill roth of delaware cosponsored and this was known as the kemp roth tax bill and in 1980 Ronald Reagan endorsed this piece of legislation and in 1981 sent it pretty much exactly as i wrote it to capital hill and it was implemented in august of 1981. Now the republican theory or the legend of taxation i should say is that this one single act just ended our economic doldrums and we turned around on a dime and i look around and see almost everybody in this room was an adult in those years and remember, that it didnt quite work out that way. We had a terrible recession in 1982 1981. Ironically the economy turned around just as Ronald Reagan decided to take back a lot of his tax cut with a bill called the tax equity and fiscal responsibility act of 1982 which was the largest tax increase in american history. It raised revenues on the order of 1 of gdp which is a lot. I was reminded of this some years ago when jack was still alive. He said to me that he had gone to see president bush, the first one, in 1990 to try to argue against raising taxes and president bush said but jack, dont you realize the recovery began when we began to raise taxes. Now, this was some years ago and i was still more of a republican than i am now. So when jack told me this, i laughed because thats what staff people are supposed to do. Their bosses tell them these sorts of things. You know, it stuck in my mind for some years afterwards because it was true, the tax increase did have a positive effect. It led the Federal Reserve to cut Interest Rates which everybody for gets was a very major component of why the economy began to rise in the early 80s and another factor which nobody ever mentions is we had a massive increase in defense spending. Now standard economics says if you buy a lot of goods and services thats going to raise Economic Growth and we also had a big highway bill in 1982 as well. Even if you attribute higher growth to the tax cut it was probably a minor element compared to bed policy and these defense increases. But nevertheless also, i should point out because its not well known that aggregate Economic Growth in the 1980s was less than it was in the 1970s, we have this idea the 70s were a terrible economic era but thats mainly because of inflation. Economy worked better than people thought it did. Just to try to be rapid about this. In 1986 president reagan proposed a tax reform and it was not a flimsy document with a bunch of talking points. It was a three volume Treasury Department report to the president. It didnt go to congress. The white house then examined this report and sent a several hundred page document to capitol hill with very detailed proposals for specific legislative changes and a year and a half later after many, many days of hearings in the house and senate, a fully deliberative bipartisan process, congressman Dan Rostenkowsky was a positive force as was senator bob packwood in the senate. Republicans still somehow convinced themselves this had a huge impact on growth. Well, again, many of us here were alive in those years and maybe already in congress. We did not have a massive increase in growth in 1987 or 1988 or 1989. In fact i remember a huge stock market crash in 1987 and another one in 1989 and a recession that began in 1990. This isnt just my opinion. Very good economists i would mention particularly alan auerbock wrote a detailed article trying to find any growth effects. It had none. Didnt have any positive or negative effect. No effect. This is an interesting thing in and of itself, there was no growth effect, no reduction in unemployment from the 86 act. Since im running over my time. I would just say theres far more evidence in the historical record of the last 40 years that higher taxes such as the 1993 tax increase which many members here im sure fell on your swords about and not one republican voted for it despite their worship of the balance budget and then of course, in 2013 a very short time ago, president obama allowed many of the bush tax cuts to expire and we had a relatively large tax increase in 2013. Every republican said this was going to be a disaster but the stock market has gone up like crazy since 2013. Just want to say that as i put it in usa today this morning the entire republican theory of tax cuts and tax reform is complete and total hogwash as far as growth is concerned. There may be some good arguments for tax reform to improve efficiency and simplification and fairness and Tax Administration but the idea that were going to get any growth out of this over and above what we were going to get anyway i think is just extremely dubious. Thank you very much. Thank you. Im sorry. I was going to mention his name because his book is almost as good as yours. Tom reed was with us last night and his book is exceptional as well. Let me ask you mr. Bartlett, Arthur Laffer said quote if you cut that corporate rate to 50 it will pay for itself many times over, this will bring in 1. 5 trillion net by itself. That was the message at the white house yesterday from the secretary of the treasury, the president and the vice president. They certainly emphasized the unknown and that is they assured us that Economic Growth would return that money to the treasury time and time again. Do you want to comment on that . Thats just complete and total nonsense. Quite frankly i think arthur whom ive known for 40 years was just lying. He plays for team republican. He says whatever he thinks the party wants him to say at that particular moment in time. I mean im more than happy to look at any serious study that claims to find higher growth from tax cuts or tax reform. But let me remind the committee of something very, very basic that gets lost in the discussion which is that the trend rate of Economic Growth is a function of two things only. Growth in the labor force and growth in productivity. So you have to affect one of those two variables is youre going to get higher growth. In productivity youre again with two variables, higher Capital Investment or technological innovation. You have to show some logical mechanism whereby were going to get vastly more Capital Investment or vastly more technological innovation as a result of this tax plan and even if you believe thats true and its quite possible its going to take a long time. You dont just invent new factories overnight. It takes a good deal of time and planning. I think you have to get somebody on the other side to explain well, how is productivity going to rise . How is the labor force going to get bigger especially when were kicking people out of the country . I mean thats negative Economic Growth. Any economist will tell you that. Keep in mind also that probably the most important element of Corporate Investment is not the tax code. Its Interest Rates. Now we have the lowest Interest Rates of the post war era. We have a problem many economists talk about of secular stagnation. Where is the logical mechanism that is going to turn that around . I need to see that. But all i hear is just numbers pulled out of thin airbased on absolutely nothing. Let me ask you the same question i asked douglas aikens and is well known in washington as you are. Do tax cuts pay for themselves . Theres only one tax cut ive ever heard of that could even theoretically pay for itself and we all know that Capital Gains are not ordinary income. They represent many, many years of past income and you can get a temporary unlocking effect. But there is absolutely no evidence that the state and local level or federal level of any tax cut that ive ever looked at of it coming anywhere close to paying for itself. Now, just to be clear, when i was working for jack kemp and we were promoting the tax bill, it was our view that you might get back a third of the static revenue cut because thats about what the kennedy tax cut got and so our argument was not that the tax cut would pay for itself, just that it wouldnt lose as much revenue as the standard static models would suggest. And a third i think is very generous because keep in mind, the reagan tax cut the top rate was 70 . He brought that down to 50 . Were talking about going from 39. 6 to 35 . Give me a break. How much increase in incentives could that possibly create in i dont think theres any plausible way you can argue that this tax cut will come anywhere close to pay are for itself. Now i would like to recognize mr. Doggin and recognize the ways and Means Committee and obviously the leader at any time, should feel free to raise questions. Thank you. Amazing testimony mr. Bartlett, appreciate your comments. Ms. Wong i want to visit you about the international some more. There is a myth that theres almost 3 trillion in a pot, giant pot of gold at the end of the rainbow of earnings out there that are trapped that cant come to america and if they could just come here they would finance our infrastructure and many other good things. Let me ask you first isnt a substantial portion of these so called off shore earnings already sitting right there in new york city invested in wall street . Is there anything to prevent these off shore earnings from being invested right here in America Today in stocks and bonds and arent many so invested without any initial taxation on them at all . I think thats absolutely right. A lot of the so called off shore profits that Multi National companies have booked off show are held in u. S. Stocks, bonds, treasuries and part of the u. S. Economy. The other thing really important to note about them is we can look to what multinationals are doing with their spare cash today to think about what they would do if they had extra cash. And we have looked at the Top Ten Companies with their stocks of cash and they have been sending billions back to shareholders in recent years through share buybacks and dividends. There are little reason to believe they would invest rather than pass that cash on to shareholders as they have been doing in recent years. When we gave them this opportunity before, thats about the only thing they cant do with their socalled off shore earnings is buybacks and paying chief executive officers. As far as the tax rate that applies, i personally and think most of the members of our committee favor some reduction in the Corporate Tax rate so long as its not done with borrowed money. When you look at the effective tax rate our multinationals pay how does it compare with that of our principle competitors. In the mid to high 20s and that is similar to what other multinationals headquartered in other large countries that are similar to the u. S. Base. You referenced it in your testimony, but initially in his Campaign Last year didnt President Trump call for an end to deferral instead of for a territorial system in which there would be an incentive if you pay nothing in your investment abroad but 20 here. Big incentive to off shore jobs. You have heard something been undernoticed. President trump promised that multinationals should face the same rate on their foreign profits as u. S. Companies face on their profits. He has now flipped and said they should fate the rate of zero and that would super charge their incentive off shore and that would give them the tax advantage relative to domestic and Small Businesses. Thank you. I would like to recognize judy chu from california. Yes. Mr. Wong. I would like to ask about the estate tax. The republican outline today calls for the complete repeal of the estate tax. In my view the repeal itself is the epitome of the tax cut for the wealthy. And especially for the lucky child that gets it. The estate tax only kicks in when the inheritance is more than 5. 5 million or 11 million for a married couple. Any estate below the 5. 5 million threshold is not even subject to this tax and that means repealing it would give the wealthiest 0. 2 , a tax rate of over 3 million. If anyone thinks this will help farms, only 80 will pay the tax in 2017 and repealing it will cost our budget 269 billion over ten years. Can you elaborate what the effect of this repeal would be for wealthy heirs with small farms and businesses benefit . Its the most progressive part of the income tax at the moment and you have cited some numbers about how concentrated it would be. Well, the benefit is even more concentrated on the heirs of the extremely wealthy estates. For those worth than 50 million apiece that would be a tax cut of 20 million for each of those estates. And theres only 330 of those estates in the nation. As you said, very few estates would face the tax and because of the high exemption level the rates are around about 6 on average. As a share of the estate about 6 would go to the tax and again very little evidence any farms or Small Businesses have liquidity problems with that and able to pay it off over 13 years. Let me recognize the lady from washington state. Thank you. Thanks to all of you for being here and for your testimony. Mr. Hanlin in your testimony you talk about the Great Potential that we have for American Families if we do tax reform right and i agree with you. Rather than this approach, the republican approach that really would leave middle class working families to pay for the tax cuts for that dont benefit them, what would you suggest to your list of alternative policies that we should be considering . Thats a great question. The most important thing as youre entering into the discussion on tax reform is to set basic ground rules. And i think mr. Neal hit on the most important things. You cant at this point with our fiscal challenges, aging population and more and more Social Security and medicare ben fir areas to have any tax reform that loses revenue is going to hurt the middle class. So the ground rule of just the principle of neutrality is a basic ground rule. We should not be raising taxes on given the growth and income and equality and stagnant wages. We should not be raising taxes on the middle class or working families. So i think those are basic ground rules. Obviously there needs to pass a budget first and the budget can engrain the principle and thats critical it happens but as to specific policies, i mean i think we can look at supporting working families with for example one thing in the current tax code, childless workers dont get much earned income tax credit and that is something that both president obama and speaker ryan agreed on. It was the key part of his antipoverty plan two, three years ago totally absent from this new plan. Increasing the eitc for chooildless workers. And working families could be paying more right now . Yeah. Even under the parameters they have specified. They could pay more because they would lose more from getting rid of personal kpenexemptions. They say theyre going to raise the Child Tax Credit but dont say what it is. This is an example the plan is very vague for how its going to affect working families but very specific on how its going to affect the wealthiest people and corporatio corporations. By hear theyre putting a ceiling. Why cant you specify then . Thank you. I would like to recognize the gentleman from michigan. Mr. Levin. Thank you. I think the timing of this is impeccable. Its the same day as we received the republican plan. I think its usual to look back at 1986 if i might say so. I sat in on a lot of discussions hoping to be a member the next year which turned out luckily to be true. The hallmark was bipartisanship in a real sense. We had a discussion yesterday about that. And how the leadership and eventually everybody else with the white house sat down before the plan was put together to really discuss how to proceed. This is really the opposite. The chairman mr. Brady said and i quote, until the budget is signed, sealed, delivered and we know where we have a runway to land tax reform on, we will not begin the tax reform process. But essentially they began it in more than they did beginning it putting down this plan. I think some of you are here will think that the democrats are kind of on automatic pilot opposing. The truth of the matter is the republicans have been on automatic pilot. And so were confronted today with a proposal that has a lot of ingredients and we have no choice but to take what they have proposed today and to tell it like it is. And that is it would basically help the very wealthy and i think could lead to a kind of a tax on everybody else. A deficit tax. So i just wanted to pick up what was said earlier by you mr. If i can find it. You talked about ill just read from your testimony mr. Hanlin. Sooner or later working people are going to be the ones holding the tab for the tax cuts for those at the top because there are only three ways to pay for them. By raising taxes on working families, by cutting programs that serve working families, or by increasing deficits that will ultimately result in cuts. Just briefly explain i think you sum it up what we face. Yeah, i think its just math. If you look at the last 15 years you look at the cycle of whats happened right. So we had the bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. It was a surplus at the time and many wouldnt last and it didnt. Then the tax cuts blew up deficits. And then of course, you know, conservatives come back and during the obama years say the deficits, theres a fiscal crisis around the corner and deficits are increasing and we need to cut programs. We need to cut spending, medicare. Right . And then you look at the just at the recent discussions the attempts to repeal the Affordable Care act. Theres clearly we are seeing a clear pairing between theyre trying to cut taxes to cut health care to pay for tax cuts. When theyre separated in two legislative vehicles its hard to see the connection. Very much so. Just talk about revenue neutrality is bologna. Its truly bologna. Is my time up . Okay. Thank you. Let me recognize the gentleman from california mr. Thompson. Yeah. The green light flashing. Thank you to all the witnesses for being here. You have done an excellent job. Mrs. Wong, the i saw you was before the full committee, and we talked a little bit about what was going on in kansas. And so this seems to me like were seeing the same movie over again. And we know how its going to end up. And im interested in knowing what this is going to mean for working people, the middle class people. Republican members were on television today and they were talking one of them said, i cant i cant identify a Single Person who isnt hurt from this tax cut proposal that the president has rolled out. But i suspect what happens is it before too long, were going to see this debt balloon, and mr. Hanlin talked about that a little bit. But this debt is going to grow, and then what were going to hear is, well, we cant live with this debt so were going to have to cut education, health care, transportation, housing, everything else. Can you help us understand exactly how this kansas experiment worked out for middle class folks . Right. So weve seen this movie before. And some of the same actors are in the same movie, as well. I think we heard about altleft before. He was one of the key architects of this kansas tax cut plan. Designed it, was part of the group of policymakers who have seen supercharged growth in kansas. Governor brownbeck delivered a shot of adrenaline to the heart of the kansas economy. We saw that that didnt happen. We saw that the deficit hole was not filled by growth. And instead once they used up all of the gimmicks they could use to plug the hole, they had to go to things like shutting schools early, delaying road repairs. Medicare was put under pressure. So this is exactly the same movie played out a little bit quicker, because in the states you have to balance your budget every year. At the federal level, it could happen over a little bit more slow motion. But in the end, the result is the same. And the other thing that i think we should point to in terms of believing sometimes what they say is that republican budgets, the Trump Administration budget and the house budget, have been very clear about what their targets are for deficit reduction. They have deep cuts in medicaid and medicare and programs and nondefense discretionary across the board that they say are necessary to address current deficits. The gentle lady from california, ms. Sanchez. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank you to all of our witnesses for being here and providing excellent testimony about what we should be looking at as we move forward on tax reformat. I dont think there is a person on this dais who wouldnt agree we are looking for tax reform that is fair, simple and provide certainty. But that looks out for middleclass americans like the constituents that we represent. Right now one of the biggest issues that confronts any of my constituents are these unwinnable choices that they have to make between raising a family on one parents salary or having one parent leaving the work force because of the skyrocketing costs of child care. And thats an issue that ive worked on for several years. But increasingly for working families, child care costs are a real determining factor in whether or not women leave the work force. And many of them are very talented, but the cost of obtaining affordable child care almost cancels out the salary earnings they would make. So im interested in asking mr. Hamlin, i dont know if youve had a chance to see the president s proposal on child care. And i am curious to know, the Median Income in my district for family is about 66,000 a year. So with the president s child care proposal became law, how would that impact a family at 66,000 a year . Would that provide any true benefit . Seth just asked me to take that, if its okay. Absolutely. Happy to. So first off, as you rightly pointed out, the cost of child care is very high. So we can run anywhere from 3,000 to 15 or 17,000 a year to have a child in full time daycare. And the president s proposal would provide a small bump up in a tax credit, somewhere [ inaudible ] which would [ inaudible ] certainly not enough to really make a serious dent. I think more disconcertingly, the fact is that the president s proposals on child care disproportionately benefit families at the top end of the income spectrum and dont provide the kind of refundable credits we would need to see for families at the bottom. So its not enough. Its targeted at the wrong people. And then i really cant emphasize enough to you all that this is, i think the panel agrees and many of you seem to agree, this is over all not a great plan. Its a plan of tax cuts primarily for the wealthy. And the child care benefit seems to be one of the little shiny objects that actually is appealing to folks in this room. And not getting distracted that even with this very small amount, the fact is that the benefits that families are likely to lose are likely to far outweigh any small benefit they would get from this, were it to become law. You know, given the things folks have already said. So child care is an important and pressing issue. And i want to emphasize something Bruce Bartlett said at the beginning, which is what drives Economic Growth is labor force and technological change. And if youve got people dropping out of the labor force because they cant afford care, that is a drag on our economy. It has now been welldocumented that the fact that the United States stands alone in not providing working families with these kinds of supports is pulling down our Economic Growth. And so if you wanted to actually boost growth through the tax code, doing a lot more to support working families to afford child care would be a great way to go. But it doesnt look like this is it. Thank you. I appreciate that answer. I just want to touch on something that you said. I dont want to use up more time. But my fear with this tax reform plan concocted by the republicans is that they want to laud and pat themselves on the back for what theyre doing for middle class families or working families, so they want to be able to say heres what you get. You get a shiny dime. Isnt that wonderful. While theyre allowing multinational corporations and the wealthiest americans to shove 100 bills in their pockets and walk out the door. And im just wondering if anybody else on the panel feels like thats essentially what the republican plan is. Yeah, absolutely. And i have to admit, i was a little confused by your question, because you said how did the president s plan on child care. And i was like, well, there is no plan. There is absolutely nothing in this document on child care. And in his april, you know that onepage outline they put out, it just said help families with child care expenses. Zero policy proposals. But i wholeheartedly with what heather said. He did have a child care you know, donald trump child care tax proposal during the campaign that he campaigned on. But it was very skewed to highincome higherincome people. And people who are struggling the most to afford child care got very little or most probably got nothing from that plan. Thank you. Mr. Davis is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Bartlett, let me go back to low and moderateincome citizens. Do you see anything in this plan that could benefit low and moderateincome citizens . And if not, what would . No, i dont see anything in this plan at all. But i would just make a point that i think sometimes we ask too much of the tax system. It cant do a lot of the things that we would like for it to do. And one of the and when it comes to workingclass people, low and moderateincome people, what we really need is higher wages, right . And so how do we get higher wages . We need to get companies to pay them. We cant i know we can do some of that by raising the minimum wage. But what we have to do is increase the demand for labor. Now, i think we are as a Macro Economic matter, the economy has been suffering from the same identical problem for about ten years, which is a lack of aggregate demand. And so i think the best way we can get that going is a huge infrastructure program. Which the president has talked about and then didnt do anything about. And furthermore, i think that our recent weatherrelated problems have raised the whole issue of global warming, which nobody wants to talk about. And we have got flooding, weve got all kinds of problems, and in puerto rico and texas and florida. We should be having a massive program of building seawalls and other kinds of infrastructure to deal with the fact that were going to have more rain, heavier weather, storms and things of this that are going to be a huge problem in future years. I think we should have a carbon tax and use that to pay for a huge program of dealing with global warming. Let me say, i agree with everything you said. Mr. Lewis and then mr. Higgins. Mr. Bartlett, i agree also with everything you said. But given our domestic and National Security need, should Congress Pass massive tax cut at this time . This day . No, i personally think we should be strengthening the revenue system of this country. As every tax expert knows, find the data very easily at the oecd. Org. We are a lowtax country. I have advocated for at least ten years that we have a value added tax. I think that is one way we could have our cake and eat it too in the sense of tax reform. Instead of trying to use trench warfare to get rid of popular deductions and things of that sort, just make them irrelevant by doing something by having a valueadded tax, and then raise the exemption levels to such a level that a family would have to make 100,000 or more before they paid any income taxes at all. Now, some of you are familiar with a plan that Michael Gratz at columbia discussed before this committee. I think that is a place to start and think about. What we should be doing. Will you suggest that passing a massive tax cut is not a pejorative thing to do . Yes, congressman. Thank you. Mr. Higgins is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Bartlett, im familiar with your work. If youve not already, we juwou you share the title of your book . The benefit and the burden tax reform. Why we need it and what it will take. What was your previous work . What was the name of that book . 1981 reaganomics, based on research i did working for the late jack kemp in the late 70s. And since this then . My new book is called the truth matters how to fight fake news. It will be out next month. Did you write imposters . Yes, i wrote that book as well. Who were you referring to . Oh, it was george w. Bush. Prior to his presidency, i was a very happy to be a member of the reagan wing of the republican party. But bushs incompetence pushed me out. Werent you also writing about the architect of supplyside economics . I wrote a book about that, as well, called the new american economy. Is it a failed economic theory, supply side . I think it had some good points. But i think that like a lot of good ideas, it became overused. It became a onesizefitsall theory for every economic did the bush presidency adopt supply side trickledown economics . Well, reagan, of course, talked about that sort of thing. But i think, as i said, we had a completely different situation, 1980. Rapidly rising taxes due to bracket creep, tax rate schedule. Im talking about the george w. Bush period. Oh, i think tax cuts disproportionately to the wealthy with the theory the money finds its way back into the economy. Yeah, well, i discuss in my testimony, i link to a number of studies in academic journals. I found absolutely no positive Economic Impact to any of the bush era tax cuts. No question. The our republican right wing friends today use a theory called dynamic scoring. How does that differ from supply side or trickle down economics, both of which are, if theyre not the same thing, theyre discredited economic theories. Well, dynamic scoring simply says that a tax cut large enough to impact gdp, the economy as a whole, will raise Economic Growth to some extent, and pay for the static revenue loss to some extent. And as i said, the theory that we had when i worked for jack kemp 40 years ago was we might get back 30 . And that was the most we ever said. Yeah, we never said it was going to pay for itself, and, of course, it didnt. There was Large Revenue cuts during the reagan years and the george w. Bush years. Mr. Pascrell,. Thank you. Mr. Bartlett to, add to what you presented, i did read through it. I was a little late. 72 of fortune 500 Companies Operate subsidiaries in tax havens to avoid paying their fair share. Just 57 fortune 500 companies cost us 184 billion each year. Of lost revenue. Thats a startling number, mr. Bartlett. Startling number. And what makes me more angry, you know, i feel pretty good when i get angry sometimes. My constituents are going to be struggling in new jersey to hold on to 3500 per year they pay in taxes. They play around with the local taxes and the state taxes and the mortgage deduction. Thats allowed. So what im really disturbed, mr. Bartlett, and i would like you to respond, if you would, im really disturbed when i find out in the that 2005 tax return that was leaked with president [ inaudible ] that under what he has proposed, and folks that agree with this proposal, he he would have kept just on that 2005 return, he would have kept more than 28 million that year if the tax policies he proposes today were in place. Thats one of the reasons we need those tax policies. And we need his tax returns. Just a little commercial there. Ms. Bouche, i have a question. The earned income tax credit. Which if provided to puerto rico two years ago would have helped them more than anything else, to expand that eitc, you argue in your testimony that we need to be making important investments in Human Capital, like job training, family leave. Child care. How could tax reform in your mind get us on track to make these investments, and how does the republican proposal put those investments at risk . What impact would cutting taxes on the top have on economic mobility and inequality . Would you respond to that, please . Thank you. Certainly. Let me start with that last bit about the impact of the proposal on economic mobility. The elimination of the estate tax is certainly one something that is not a huge economic mobility in the United States. What we have been seeing in recent decades is an increased concentration of income at the top. Those incomes have grown. And an increased concentration of wealth. And at this moment in time in our history, deciding to eliminate the tax on estates will only further exacerbate that concentration of wealth, which limits the ability of other people to have the opportunity to get the capital they need to become part of, you know, the middle class or to become wealthy themselves. So i think that that is something that we need to be thinking about if we actually care about economic mobility. But the rest of your question about what is it that we need to do, in my testimony, i focused on the fact that it is my opinion that we actually need to be focused on raising revenue. Because theres a lot of investments we need to be making in education, in child care, in Early Childhood education, in paid family leave, in job training, in infrastructure, that are going to set the foundation for our economy to grow in the years and decades to come. And what ive seen over the past decade is this congress being unable to take those steps to make those investments. And infrastructure being one of the big ones. We have known that with Interest Rates low, this was a good time to be investing in fwrukt. We needed to do it. We have this backlog of things we need to do and that will provide the foundation for growth. So thinking about tax reform within or within the context of what we need to be doing to grow the economy more generally, and putting taxes in its proper place, that thats an important part of the puzzle. But really what we need to be talking about is all these things we need to do to actively promote growth. Thats where i would like to see us focus our attention. And i cant emphasize enough that the investments in Early Childhood, economists have shown over the past 10 to 15 years that it is those investments that make all the difference for our future, the quality of our future labor force. We can trace back things that happened in utero to the kinds of work someone has at 35 or 40 years alone let alone what happens at prek or not. And those are investments other countries are making and we are falling incredibly behind. Thank you. Recognize the gentle lady from alabama, ms. Soul. First i want to thank all of you for being here. You know, mr. Bartlett, i represent the poorest district in the state of alabama. And so many of the folks that i represent have been waiting for trickledown economics to trickle down to them. And one of the things that i think is really imperative is that we figure out how to grow this economy, to heathers point. And i know that the growth that we did see in the 80s was primarily because of defense spending and Interest Rates and investments. So my question to you is, from where i sit, the future work is huge. And investing in Human Capital, be it Workforce Development or skills training, will be paramount to not only raising revenue, but to really the survivability of rule parral pa my district. The reality is so many skills they have are dying on the wayside. And with automation coming down the pipeline, im really quite worried about that. So can you speak a little bit about growing the economy with respect to increasing Human Capital and investing in Human Capital . Well, when i said that Capital Investment is one of the key drivers of growth, i meant to include Human Capital. And i do think that especially among republicans, theres the idea that were talking about machinery and equipment and factories, which is fine. But i dont think were going to bring back those lost manufacturing jobs that have gone to china. Now, i am very concerned, as are all economists, about the prospect of automation. And especially the impact on the lowerincome workers who dont require a great deal of skill for their jobs. Theyre going to have to obviously upgrade their skills. But we also have to find some way of improving the distribution of income. And not just through taxation. Im personally quite interested in a proposal that maybe youve talked about of a National Basic guaranteed income of some amount of money. I think this is absolutely essential to offset the distributional impact of automation, and maintain aggregate demand, because the alternative is were going to have increasing inequality and there just isnt money being spent. And thats what we need to get the economy growing. Exactly. And to talk about the sort of inequality and inequities of this president s proposal, seth, i was hoping that you could talk a little bit about passthroughs. You know, i worked on wall street before i went home to alabama. And theres a lot of hedge funds that are in this sort of passthrough. And while i know that i have automobile dealers and farmers that maybe qualify for that, as well, can you explain to us who the winners and losers would be with respect to passthroughs, and if you have any thoughts about any alternatives. Sure. So i think in terms of the loser or at least those left out, what the proposal does is cap the top rate for passthrough for owners of passthrough businesses at 25 , right . But 86 of all businesses, including much higher percentage of Small Businesses, already pay taxes at 25 or lower. So they get exactly nothing. From this proposal. So the winners are going to be by definition people in the higher tax brackets. So now, of course, as you mentioned, if you look at who is organized as a passthrough, the financial sector, all of the hedge funds theyre all organized as partnerships. Every one of them. The private equity firms, as well. And so you look at, you know, the experience in our tax code with the carried interest loophole and hedge funds and private equity funds, squeezing themselves into this loophole to get the benefit of a lower rate. The new passthrough loophole is orders of magnitude bigger. Because it could provide a lower rate, not just on a certain type of income from, you know, carried interest of hedge funds, but on all of their income. Right . So and real estate, as well, as ive mentioned, of course, our president. So those are the winners. Would you recommend a different approach . Theres plenty of ways. So if were focused on Small Businesses, as we should be, and simplifying taxes for Small Businesses, which we should be, lets focus on Small Businesses, right, and actually have tax proposals that apply to Small Businesses, not the Trump Administration. So there are many ways to do that. The Obama Administration had a number of proposals, like to move to cash accounting to dramatically simplified taxes for Small Businesses to consolidate the start things like the startup deduction. To make taxes much simpler. You know, and, of course, theres you could create tax credits for things that we want businesses to do. Like hire employees or raise their wages. Apprenticeship programs . Yes, absolutely. Thank you very much. Thank you, ms. Suel. We move now to noncommittee members for two minutes. Mr. Yarmuth . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Handler, a further question on passthroughs. There is nothing to prevent us from writing a bill that had progressive passthrough rates, is there . No. I mean, its just well, we just keep the ordinary the passthrough rates are just the regular, ordinary rates under the current tax code. And there are progressive tax brackets, we could make them more progressive. Right, exactly. So the fact that they set it at 25 and most businesses dont qualify it, their intentions are obvious thats what they were trying to do. Yeah. We havent had a discussion yet about securities transactions taxes, and its not in part of the plan, but its talked about periodically. Does anybody have an opinion on whether a securities transaction taxes would be something we ought to consider . My concern has always been it will simply drive trading offshore. So i think if youre going to do that, it needs to be coordinated at least with the major financial centers, paris, london, tokyo, et cetera. And finally, one thing we also havent talked about in terms of general Economic Growth is immigration reform. Talk about work force and so forth. Ms. Bouche, youre shaking your head. Is that something we ought to be talking about with regard to Economic Growth . This is a a growthkilling strategy to take young folks living in the United States who are getting an education and sending them to places that where they may or may not be able to contribute to their economies there. But they certainly wont be contributing to ours. So that is not a growthenhancing strategy that the president has been so far pursuing. Anybody else want to comment on that . One on the financial transaction. Sure. So i think i mean, i certainly agree, theres always the risk that trading moves offshore. But we its important to notice, we have financial transactions, taxes, on Securities Trading that funds the s. E. C. And theyre at a very low level, and i dont think they have any impact i dont think theres any studies that show they have any impact on trading. So, you know, a modest fee, you know, could tax just the high the very highfrequency trading without interrupting some of the you know, moving the activity offshore. I think its something thats worth at least looking into, although i certainly agree with mr. Bartlett theres a number of things to be balanced. Right. Thank you very much. I yield back. Mr. Crowley. Thank you all for being here today and testifying. And i just have a couple observations and one quick question. I think that there is theres tacit agreement, i guess you could say, between democrats and republicans in recognizing that the code today is broken. That it was done in a very bipartisan way, a little over 30 years ago in 1986, under president reagan. And, in fact, Ranking Member neil had a meeting today with mr. Gephardt and and a number of other former members of the house who were here during that time. And the one thing i have been stressing with Business People in particular is that you do not want to have a partisan tax bill go through the house of representatives. Its not good for business. Its not for longterm investment. And, you know, universally, people agree with that, except for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. They have continued to negotiate amongst themselves as to what they believe is the policy to be put in place. And i would just, again, reiterate for anyone who is listening out there in the Business World to please contact your member of congress. Dont let them do this in a partisan way. But i think there is some recognition that the code that exists right now is overly complicated. And because of that, its inefficient. My mom, she hires out to have her taxes done. And the old days, when my dad used to do them, they were so simple, it took him two nights, and you didnt want to go near him when it was being done. I would argue, it was never easy to do. But i think we can also talk about how its unfair in many respects, both in the corporate end, where you have some companies that pay little or zero taxes. And others that pay the marginal rate. You could argue we could have a discussion about whether or not theres parity of fairness, the personal side of that. But i think one of the things that is most worrisome about the code right now is actually it promotes growth overseas as opposed to promoting growth right here in the United States. So i think those are things that democrats and republicans can agree and look at and say we need to fix the code. But the only one thing that i have heard consistently in terms of pay for is how this is all going to get done in a revenueneutral way. And my republican colleagues continue to use scoring. But theres one aspect that is consistent. In every republican plan and even the white house plans, state and local deductibility of taxes is consistently eliminated. And i believe that thats one avenue by which we actually help the middle class. To avoid that double taxation. Taxation on their taxes. Can anyone here venture to suggest what may happen, and what burden we will be placing on the middle class if that that one provision, that one consistent payfor, even when the president suggested his tax bill that was in the trillions of dollars and had no payfors for it out of the 10 , the one payfor that was consistently there was the elimination of deductibility of state and local taxes. Let me just say there is only a reason they want to get rid of that deduction is because it is primarily used by the blue states. They have relatively high taxes, and they think now at the time, i was a senior fellow at the heritage foundation, and so i understood perfectly well what the right wing playbook was. I wouldnt advocate that from a different point of view. But i just want you to understand i know whats in their hearts, regardless of what they say. Democratic voters and states that as you know if you look at the flow of federal funds, you know, there are some states pay a lot in taxes to the federal government, gets back very little in terms of benefits and get back an enormous amount, pay very little. The ones that pay are the ones that get the welfare. Free loaders are the red states. And thats all there is to it. Thats all you need to know. There is no economic substance to this. Pretty consistent what they tried to do with health care, as well, with trumpcare. Does anybody else want to comment on that, as well . Well, thats certainly true. You know, theres plenty of people, and upper middle class people in red states, and theres also plenty of red districts within blue states. Blue constituents benefit from that deduction. And so i think i would also mention here the state and local Tax Deduction and personal exemptions, which exclusively benefits moderate and middleincome people. So i think you need to look at some parts of the plan. If you look at the plan, taking away their state and local Tax Deduction. Its true in new york, california, and its also true that middleincome people in all 50 states massive tax cuts with expiration dates. Now, can you possibly plan for the future when you have absolutely no idea what the tax system is going to be. In economics, we were always opposed to do extremely well, and get a massive windfall, even if were taking away their state and local Tax Deduction. Its true in new york and california and also true that militantsincome people in all 50 states get little or nothing from the plan. Congressman, can i add something to your earlier comment about complexity . Probably the most important complicating factor in the tax code of the last generation was when the republicans enacted massive tax cuts with expiration dates. Now, how can you possibly plan for the future when you have absolutely no idea what the tax system is going to be in the future . Now, theres i say as somebody who, you know, helped originate supplyside economics, we were always opposed to temporary tax cuts, the phasedin tax cuts. We thought these were contrary to helping the incentive effects of these tax changes. Now, ill tell you. Im sure every person in this room knows the name Grover Norquist. Well, Grover Norquist is my oldest friend in washington. Ive known him since 1974. And back in the early 2000s, when they were enacting these bush tax cuts with expiration dates, i said to grover, this is a terrible tax policy. Why are we doing this . And he said, dont worry. Theyll never allow them to expire. Theyll just extend them forever and eventually people will figure out that theyre more or less permanent, and thats our plan. And i thought that was just the height of irresponsibility. And keep in mind, i was on his side in those days. Yield back to the chair. Thank you very much. Mr. Laurel, two minutes. Thank you, very much, mr. Chairman. And madam leader. Just a note to my colleagues. Theres a report out called Corporate Tax cuts boosts ceo pay, not jobs. Its a study done by the institute of politics. And it addresses the issue of lowering the tax burden, and whether or not it will lead to more and better jobs. They looked at 92 publicly held corporations, reported a u. S. Profit between 2008 and 2015, paid less than 20 of their earnings in federal income tax, and a job growth was a negative 1 between 2008 and 2016. So i think its important to get hold of this report, take a look at it. But my question is to heather bouche. In your written testimony, you encourage policymakers to, quote, focus on the poorest families and the youngest children. Given the evidence suggests the benefits of additional income. End quote. Ive introduced that leader pelosi, and neil, the Child Tax Credit improvement act, co sponsored by 90 of our democratic colleagues. What it would do is increase the value of the credit to 3600 for families with children under age 6. And eliminate the earnings requirement and the phasein rate for those families. Can you talk more about the importance of targeting additional tax benefits to families with young children, and the republican proposal released today proposes to increase the value of the credit, but caps the refundability of the credit to 1,000. And can you talk about how this proposal would leave behind the poorest and the most needy families. Certainly, congresswoman. And that is a very important piece of legislation, and glad to see you have so many co sponsors on it, because it is so important. You know, the proposal today from what we know would, as you said, cap the refundability of the Child Tax Credit, and its exactly the folks at the bottom that you would want to benefit the most. So if youre going to be spending more money on supporting families with children, you want that to be very progressive. And you want that that money targeted at the families that need it the most and the ones struggling with the child care costs and especially singleparent families struggling with child care costs and have lower incomes. So i i cant emphasize enough just how important that is. During the campaign, now President Trumps all of his proposals that were aimed at helping families with children was very