Being with us here today. Theres a lot to unpack in this outline so 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 its so deviates from everything the president said. He is talking the talking but this plan shows he is not walking the walk. Just look at the ways this plan is a boon for the wealthy. Corporations have hired lawyers and lobbiest 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 . The 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 ceo bonuses, stock buy back, dividends for their shareholders. Theyre plush with money all ready. Theres no proof, no real belief, no real argument that theyre 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 Small Businesses. Now will it at least these corporations pay for their massive Corporate Tax cut by closing egregious corporate loopholes that help multinational corporations avoid paying their fair share of taxes, not in this outline. There is no indication, none at all that this framework under this framework that the Corporate Tax cut will be offset by corporate loophole closures. What about on the individual side . Multimillion will naires with estates over 11 million, they get a tax break too. By repealing the estate tax goes only for the very wealthy, republicans are not giving republicans are giving 269 billion to the richest 2 10 of 1 . The president said he didnt want to give tax breaks to the rich then he should 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 35. The very wealthiest of americans get an even bigger tax break. The high end, the 1 , theyre doing great, god bless them, theyre doing great. They dont need a tax break. Middle class people do. So look at what this plan does. It gives huge tax cuts to the wealthiest and the 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 will not make up for the loss when you eliminate state and local deductibility and my what i say to the president and the republicans, last time you tried to eliminate state and local deductibility and tax reform founder had to eliminate that. Same thing will happen now. Lots of republican congressman 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 are 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 the 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 their bill increase by 1,000. Thats not helping the middle class. Theyre using fine print, hidden tax hikes on the middle class in order to give huge cuts to the wealthy. The plan will add anywhere from 5 to 7 trillion to our deficit. If it passes, it will only be a matter of time before republicans start crying out, the deficits so big, weve got to cut Social Security, we have to cut medicare, americans beware. Thats what they do. Dramatically lower taxes on the wealthy, do it in a irresponsible way and then they say the big deficit we just created forces us to cut medicare and Social Security. 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 rule. 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 weve said tax reform should go through regular order, it should help the middle class, not the top 1 and should not increase our deficit. And 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. Theyre going to decidedly push an unpopular plan, 70 of americans do not want tax breaks for the wealthy or big corporations. Theyre going to try to usual 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 against this plan that is so preverse in helping the wealthy and hurting the middle class and it will fail. My great friend, our tax expert, senator wyden. Senator schumer has said is t very well so let me just 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 ultra wealthy get 100 billion handout each time the Corporate Tax rate is cut by just one percentage point. Back of the napkin estimates show the trump ploont corporate side will result in 1. 8 trillion in tax cuts for the multinationals and the powerful ceos. Then lets turn to the passthrough issue that the two of us feel so strongly about. This completely new lunar crater size new loophole in effect takes a page out of gordon gekcos playbook. Passthrough status democrats have said again and again is enormously important to Small Businesses, a cleaner, a garage, a restaurant. Thats not what the republicans are talking about. Theyre 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 give pchl estimate of 660 billion in tax cuts to maralagos most loyal members. And through Shell Companies and tax shelters, well to do people, the richest in america are going to be able to disguise wages as business income to avoid higher income tax rates and paying their fair share of payroll taxes. And 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 the americas wealthiest individuals to add another 2 trillion to the heepg pile of tax cuts for the fortunate few. Let me turn now to the middle class. 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 theyre 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 in to each and every middle class paycheck coupled with the elimination of the personal and dependent exemption, this is a recipe for serious inequality in our codes. And i want to just amp amplify for a moment, saying that theyre doubling the standard deductions. 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 that theyre going to increase the standard deduction at the same time they propose eliminating these vital personal and dependent exemptions. When a family of four would gain with respect to an extra 12,000 in standard deductions, they simultaneously lose more than 16,000 in personal and dependent exemptions. 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 insuring 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 and that is, you work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle. This proposal walks back the three principals 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. Ready for your questions. Just to be clear, you believe that the plan as it stands right now with a lot of details missing would raise taxes on lower income americans . It would it raises the rates on lower income families if youre a 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 i guess at about 4. 3 or whatever it is, seemingly relatively low, you might make the argument that the smith class doesnt need a tax cut either. Ask them. My question is, what do you think the middle class actually wants . I think first of all, if you look talk to middle class folks, they do not want tax breaks for the very wealthy and they do not want tax breaks to the big corporations. They want relief themselves and thats what should have been done in this plan. As i said, the president talked the talk. Were going to aim this at the middle class. He isnt walking the walk. This is aimed at the wealthiest people in the america. They do far and away the best. What is your message to this free democrats that didnt sign your letter and who trump thinks will come and work with them . Democrats have all talked about fiscal responsibility not increasing the deficit. The three democrats i believe think tax should go to the middle class. There are things that 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. There was some language about making sure in the committees that the passthrough rate didnt apply to the wealthy. Do you take that as face value. Its not in their plan and heres the amazing thing. So youre a Big Hedge Fund or fancy law firm. Youll pay no Corporate Tax. And then instead of paying an individual rate of 39. 6 or even in this plan of 35, you pay 25. Its a dramatic huge trillion dollars tax break for the wealthiest, for the wealthiest. Middle class people cant take advantage of this. Let me tell you whats happened in the committee, 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, theyre doing something else. Maybe just maybe theyre going to honor the pledge that they made months ago to correct it. They still havent, number one. And number two, we just received testimony recently in the Senate Finance committee that it is very, very hard, if not impossible to stop the ripoff in the kind of proposal that they have in effect laid out once more today. Look, the bottom line is, just about everything that the president , treasury secretary mnuchin, gary cohn have said is not embodied in this plan. They hope they can talk one way and fool the American People. Were not going to let them and this plan is our best ammunition that what they say and what theyre doing are different and in the next few months, we are going to be talking about this every day and the American People are not going to like this plan when they learn of it. What do you do . First of all, our letter said three things. No tax breaks for the 1 . They violated that. Second, dont increase the deficit. They violated that. And third, lets do things in a bipartisan way, which i think every one of the democrats, 45 plus 3 all agree with on working together. They are i think they realize just like with health care that what theyre doing is so out of the mainstream, theyre wealthy contributors and donors love it, the hard right loves it, that if they went to reconciliation theyd have to move the plan somewhat to the middle and somewhat to help the middle class because thats where democrats are and theyd have to forsake their big contributors and coke brothers and everything like that. They dont want to do that. The problem is they think if they think they can fool people theyre not going to succeed. The plan is totally different than what they say about the plan. Just going back to the question of no deductions for state and local taxes. Yes. When you look at the Health Care Plan and there was a medicaid redistribution element that went against new york and connecticut. Do you see some kind of geographical red state blue state fault line at work here . I do see some of that but heres the problem. There are particularly in the house, there are a whole lot of republican congressmen who come from districts that are going to be adversely effected. And lets say, take long island, you have a family, its a teacher and police officer. Theyre incomes about 150,000 but they pay between their property tax and their income tax a lot. If they dont get the deductions doubling the standard deduction is not going to make up for or come close to it. So my guess is youre going to have 30, 40, 50 congress members, republicans, who say i cant vote for this because it raises taxes on my core constituency. Thats the lesson they learned in 86. I was part of it. I would add to the leaders point that 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 principal of the Senate Republican economic thinking. Thats number one. And number two, as the leader said, this is not breaking into just a blue state red state kind of issue. E were going to see in big swaths of the country, not just one or two places, were going to see lots of folks who are paying pretty significant local taxes and theyre going to be saying, not so fast, especially when they look at some of the other things. Yeah. You compared it to health care, but health care is a visceral personal thing that people interact with on a daily basis and taxes are something that feel confused by. Im sorry. How you keep this in the conversation about making a personal decision . It talking to people around my state and looking at the surveys, if you ask people on an issue by issue basis whats the number one thing they want, reduction in drug cost prices. Number two, no tax cuts for the wealthy. People viscerally care about it. The old republican plan which they used to do george bush did it, give a small little break to the middle class and a huge break to the wealthy. In 2016, that doesnt work any more. Kelsey, on that point, because the leader is saying what we all hear, how does this relate to me, a hard working middle class family . So when republicans propose increasing the standard deduction and at the same time eliminate the personal and dependent exemptions youre going to have a lot of families, particularly the large ones, and the republicans say that theyre the champions of family values, those folks are going to have a net tax increase and what the leader and i are saying is out there where we go to our communities, we both go to communities and all over our state, people are going to start taking on a little sharp pencil here. With the numbers that the leader and i have laid out, a whole lot of those middle class folks particularly ones with big families are going to pay more. Its pretty visceral when youre a middle class person and this bill wants to raise it as much as 5,000. Its going to effect as many as middle class people as health care. And one other thing and i think people are aware of this, Social Security and medicare are at risk in a plan like this because youre going to so dramatically increase the deficit then 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 then said lets cut Social Security. We have a big deficit. Thank you, everybody. Thank you