Transcripts For KPIX Face The Nation 20171217

Well also talk to Oklahoma Republican senator james lankford, a member of the Intelligence Committee which is conducting one of the investigation into possible Trump Campaign collusion with the russians. Well also have plenty of analysis on all the news of the week and look ahead to next. Plus how the tax bill might impact you, its all ahead on face the nation. Good morning, welcome to face the nation im john dickerson. Republican tax plan is in the home stretch. The final package will be voted on tuesday in the house then moves to the senate. At this point it looks like republicans have enough votes to pass it. One s. 5 trillion tax cut plan roughly doubles the standard deduction for both individuals and married couples. It cuts individual tax rates, the top income bracket drops from 9. 6 to 37 . The Corporate Tax rate decreases, too, it goes from 35 to 21 . The bill eliminates the obamacare ban mate with individuals no longer required to Purchase Health care. It could result in 1 million more people becoming uninsured. Child tax credit is doubled to 2,000. Income level for those qualifying goes up to 500,000 and 1400 of the credit will be refundable for those whose income is so low that they dont pay income tax. The mortgage Interest Deduction is capped at 750,000 and the deduction for state and local taxes is sha u. K. To so,000. According to the Congressional Budget Office and joint committee on taxation it will add 1. 6 trillion to the debt. And we bee gibb today with treasury secretary steve mnuchin, welcome, mr. Secretary. Let me ask you a question about priorities in this. Throughout the discussion about this tax bill its been clear the corporate rate is going to drop significantly, all the way to 21 at the end, for middle class they do get a tax cut. But for a president who dedicated his p presidency to the forgotten man who ran as populous is the waiting weighting here correct . Absolutely. First of all let me just say this is a historic event. People said we wouldnt get this done. Were on the verge of getting this done. The single biggest change to the tax system ever that President Trump is going to sign. His priority alone has been fixed a broken system. Over 90 of people will be able to fill out their taxes on a postcard. The Corporate Tax rate going from the highest in the world at 35 to 21 makes us competitive. More important we fix a system where we now tax on u. S. Income, which is all about creating u. S. Jobs. Well bring trillions of dollars back on shore. Dickerson on the top rate is is going down. President said wealthy wont be getting tax cut now that will it drops from 39. 6 to 37 now that balance is out deduction in state and local but only for those people who live in high state and local tax states. Again to this question of priorities, mark sanford, republican from South Carolina from a truth in advertising sand point it would have been simpler just acknowledge reality on this bill. Which is, fundamentally Corporate Tax reduction and restructuring bill, period. Whats your response . Not the case at all. Pass throughs have the lowest rates that they ever had since the 1930s thats a huge part of engine of growth of small and mediumsized businesses. That are going to create lots of jobs. This is about hard working families that are going to see starting in february, tax cuts. Were already working at the irs to update the tax forms and update the tax charts. Theyre going to see this in their paychecks in february. Dickerson the question, its not that the middle class will bet no tax cuts they will. But the size of the tax cut relative to the emphasis and size of what corporations will get through. Not every middle class family has a pass through, obviously. Tom cole republican from oklahoma told cnbc this, it just seems wrong, he was talking about the lack of tax cuts say help with payroll taxes or the fact that the carried interest loophole remains. He said just seems wrong, wed be better off if there were more populous victories in there. President ran as populous, argument theres just not as much for the middle class, not that they get nothing but that the emphasis is skewed. I think that is just not correct. People are going to see this in their paychecks. This is about the middle class, this is about working families. This is about child tax credits that are going up significantly. As you mentioned refundable parts of the tax credits going up significantly. People are going to see their paychecks go up. People are going to see their wages go up, thats that this is all about. Dickerson how soon do you think argument you make is that with corporations, tax is lower, they will pass it on to workers in their wages. And then also spend money on plants and equipment are, how soon . This year. You already see the stock market at record highs. You see peoples 401 k up substantially. Dickerson thats not wages. No. Im just saying you already see companies in anticipation in the market. So youre going to see trillions of dollars come back, i think youre going to see this year, wages going up. Dickerson because kevin, the chairman of the council of economic advisors, said on this question of when businesses are going to pass this on to the middle class, he said if you go to the optimistic vied of the literature it could take three to five years. You go to the pessimistic side, it would about double that. So thats optimistic 35. This is being sold as Big Christmas present everybody is going to get but really this benefit that will pass on in wages and plants and equipment, kevin, the president chairman of the economic advisors says three to five years in the best case. Well thats three to five years on this 4500. But going to begin to see it right away. You wont see it all come in, it will go in over three years as kevin anticipates. Dickerson for something being sold to people as wages are going to go up, happy days are here again, happy days, even in the best Case Scenario obviously theres lot of debate about whether this will even turn out the way youve argued, even in best case three to five years for broad shared middle class prosperity as result of the theory this is based on. Not the case at all. Youre going to see happy days starting in february. Where hard working families sees that they have more money. Thats something thats absolutely critical. Youre going to see cuts any whether from 2,000 to 4,000 for medium families with two kids. This is going to have a huge impact in the economy and its going to have a huge impact on american jobs. Youre going to tee that right away. Dickerson difference between what people see in their taxes going down versus the paychecks. Let economy think question. The president another thing he campaigned on central to his campaign that was he was going to drain the swamp get rid of special interests. Public citizen reports that lobbyists have to disclose things theyre working on. 624 lobbyists have work on taxrelated issues thats more than half the lobbyists in washington worked on this. For a president who promised to drain the swamp, that seems like a lot of people working on taxes. Well, i think if it was up to the president there would be a lot fewer of them. The reason why theres so many people working on it is, weve touched almost every single part of the tax code. So dickerson been defeated in this case . Absolutely. If you look at the massive changes to this, we fixed a broken tax system. Thats what this is all about. Dickerson tom cole talks about carried interest the president said that let Hedge Fund Managers get away with ford, its been tweaked a little bit still in there. Why was that worth keeping . That was up to the house and senate. The president likes the overall bill, theres obviously little parts of this bill that he would have tweaked differently himself. The fact that its moved from one year to three years is definitely a step in the right direction. And the fact that it impacts a lot of small real estate developers, but as you said the president couldnt get every single little detail he wanted. That was one of them that got left out. Dickerson okay. Thats it. Were out of time. I appreciate nice to see you. Dickerson thanks for being with us. Were joined now by vermont independent senator Bernie Sanders hes in burlington, welcome, senator. That looks looks its going to get passed through the senate and house and signed by the president the tax cut bills there anything more than opponents like you could have done to stop this . Well, i think we did everything that we could. But at the end of the day what you had is people like mr. Mnuchin who is worth 300400 million. The president of the United States who is wort several billion dollars as you mentioned from four or five thousand lobbyists doing everything they could to write a bill which significantly benefits the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations. Latest analysis that we have seen suggests that 72 of the benefits go to the top 5 . My guess is that 60 of the benefits will go to the top 1 and at the end of the decade because the benefits for the middle class are temporary, while the Corporate Benefits are permanent, at the end of the decade over half of the middle class will be paying more in taxes. What we are seeing here is a real massive attack on the middle class. What i worry very much, john, is that if you listen to what the speaker of the house, paul ryan is talking about, what he is saying is that as a result of this bill, the deficit will go up by 1. 4 trillion dollars. And what ryan in my view will come back with are massive cuts to social security, medicare and medicaid in order to offset that deficit. Massive tax breaks for the rich. Cuts to social security, this is a grossly unfair tax bill. Dickerson i wouldnt get to the entitlements in just a moment on that question of the middle class, what the Administration Says and republicans say that, yes, tax cuts expire for middle class, but knowing politics as they do, that nobody is going to vote to have let them expire that they will be capped. That seems pretty probably in the way washington works. Is it really fair to say that go ahead. They are. The way this bill is written is the tax breaks for corporations are now permanent, why werent the tax breaks for middle class made permanent because it has to do with the priorities of the folks who wrote that legislation. And their job is to represent multinational corporations not working families. Thats where we are today. Dickerson let me ask you, lot of talk about politics here. Is the democrats take control of the senate and you caucus with the democrats, what is the promise to america about what will be done to reverse the state of affairs that youre so unhappy with . Look, at a time of passion sieve income and wealth, people on top, large corporations are doing well our job is to Pay Attention to the needs of working families. We talk about a child care tax credit in this bill. Truth is that depending where you live in america, good quality child care can cost 1220,000 a year. Our job is to move to universal child care so that every working family in this country knows that their kids have good quality care. Right now, john, this is really quite unbelievable. While the republicans are spending all of their time providing massive tax breaks to the rich that there has been no discussion, public discussion about the dreamers, the needs of the dreamers, 800,000 young people born and raised in america are going to lose their legal status very shortly. What about the chip program. Nine million kids will lose their health insurance. Dickerson let me get to th that. Are Corporate Taxes going up if democrats take control . I think well take a very hard look at this entire tax bill and make it a tax bill that works for the middle class and working families not for the top 1 and large multinational corporations. Dickerson theres no question that in order to achieve all of the things you want, taxes are going to have to go up on corporations if theyre down to 21 as rum of this, you cant find the money anywhere where else. Absolutely, yes. In my view, absolutely. Dickerson lets go on to the budget and spending question. Is the republicans, democrats have said medicare will have to be cut because of the costalled paygo rules. They say democrats will waive those rules next year that the rules are always waived so its a false attack to say that theyre going to be automatic cuts nor medicare. Your response . No, it is not a false attack, john. Simply listening to what the speaker of the house has said. And what he has said is, after they do the tax bill the next order of business socalled entitlement reform. And please, understand, that when republicans talk about entitlement reform, what they are talking about are massive cuts to medicare, medicaid and social security. In the budget that they already pass. They propose a trillion dollar cut to medicaid, which would be disastrous for people who have loved ones in nursing homes, for children and for working families who are on this is what they have already proposed. So they are going to come back in my view in order to offset this deficit with terrible cuts to social security, medicare and medicaid. Dickerson its thats slightly different than following through on restrictions created by paygo which they say youll waive. Let me ask you about spending bill, keep the government open, what is your message to Democratic Leaders about how tough how and what they should fight for in terms of funding the government . Look, right now it is no secret that the middle class is hurting. Republicans have been unable to reauthorize, for example, the Community Health Center Program providing health care to 27 million americans. The chip programs, the Childrens Health Insurance Program they have ignored for three months the chip program for nine million children in this country has not been funded. We have a crisis in pensions in this country million and a half hard working people who are promised their pensions are going to see their pensions reduced by 50 or 60 . We have ha Rural Infrastructure crisis where people cant get we have 30,000 vacancies in the Veterans Administration that have not been filled. Our job street to take care of the needs of working families and the middle class not just worry about the 1 . So, i believe that as we talk about the new spending bill, those are the issues. We must demand that republicans. Dickerson were out of time, senator, thanks for being with us, well be back in one minute. This is a power plant. This is tim barckholtz. Thats me this is something he is researching at exxonmobil using fuel cells to capture Carbon Emissions at power plants. This is the potential. Reducing co2 emissions by up to 90 . While also producing more power. This could be big. Energy lives here. Kihuen. Dickerson we turn now to Oklahoma Republican senator james lankforder joins us from oklahoma city. Welcome. I want to talk with this tax cut bill. You have talked about the debt and deficit throughout your career, all of the independent analysis says that this tax cut bill will add a trillion or more to the debt. Why then is this a bill you can support . Actually all the independent analysis doesnt note that. Joint committee on tax does note that, but the Tax Foundation doesnt. Theres a lot of others. We have 130 different sets of economists that are out there part of the challenge is always looking at which one is right, all of them are putting a forecast out there. All of them have different numbers. We have some as high as 5 growth, we have some as low as. 8 growth. All show Economic Growth, guess is how much Economic Growth is in the bill itself. Target of the any time you do tax reform try reduce taxes on individuals and on businesses so they have more money to spend, they can spend that money that encourages the economy to grow. S we know it will grow now the guess is how much. Dickerson thats right. The Tax Foundation is still around 500 billion to the debt, majority of independent Analysis Shows even larger. That bet youre making is isnt there a big Downside Risk that youve talked about throughout your career which is that the negative effects of increased dealt kill the growth that youre trying to create . Absolutely. The Biggest Issue that would have if we have accelerating debt is the issue of continued investment from the federal government into more and more interest payments. We have to get the economy growing to get on top of this. Weve said for years the debt is so large only way to be able to get on top of this debt and deficit is growing economy and limiting your spending. Weve limited spending over last several years, its been very small in growth for spending built the economy is also been flat the last decade. Weve not had a decade like the last decade since is the 1940s. So, we have got to get the economy growing again, were not growing again. We never do get on top of the debt and deficit without that. So youre right. This is something thats designed to be able to energize the economy, it should work, a lot of people that we looked at and examined independently say it will work. The focus for us says lets get this economy growing. Dickerson if that doesnt work youll have compounded problems, when you talk about spending based on what youve seen from the way this tax bill put together, intellectual rig or, the timing and pacing, do you have confidence that spending reductions can be done in methodical and sensible way that will actually create good policy or that will create a rush that might create more problems . No, i dont think its going to create more problems. This tax bill itself has been over a year in the works. In fact if you go back to the original draft of it about three years ago, the house released that proposal on tax reform in january of this year, white house early in the summer, this is not been a rush process, this has been 12 months in the making and multiple hearings over the past year and leading back to earlier work that was done several congress,s ago. I know that the theme of this has been its been rushed, because lot of people havent started paying attention until the very end. But the process has been long and methodical. The flip side is spending side, we have budget bill to take care of that, ive had great frustration with budget process. The budget process was designed in 1974, its only worked four times, ive been one of several to be able to say over and over weve got to fix the way we do budget process. Well never get ahold of our spending until we do. Dickerson well thats the big question remains from a process, let me, though, weve got to switch to talk about Intelligence Community and work youre doing. Youve looked at this question of rush russian interference in the election, are the russians still interfering and how are we going to protect the next election . Theres no doubt the russians not only engaged in our past election but still trying to find ways to be able to do that. Weve noted several ways publicly in the last couple of months that theyre still engaging in social media trying to stir up the United States controversies. I compare it to, if you got two kids in playground that are in a fight theres always somebody on the edge screaming fight, fight, fight. Trying to bring a bigger crowd it to. Thats what the russians are trying to d. Theyre not starting it just trying to add fuel to the flame. The key thing that needs fob done is bill that is actually bipartisan bill to be able to finalize, hopefully this week to be able to drop Election Security helping states protect their own Election Security. The fbi was much too slow and Homeland Security were much too slow in notifying our states last time that the russians were trying to probe election systems. Have to do that faster and help states have a good reliable, auditable election system that they can actually do themselves and that federal government and that all states can thrust those election results. Dickerson let me ask you about tax that were release fred investigator on the mueller team. What is your opinion about those text one referred to insurance policy, theres a lot of debate about that text and what exactly was meant by it. How serious do you think this is in the context of the larger investigation that you know something about . I think its serious. Any time you have investigator within investigation has obvious political bias whichever direction, its clear this individual within the mueller team that was also on the clinton email Investigation Team on the fbi, in their leadership had a strong bias against now President Trump when he was candidate trump and was very clear about that. When that was discovered by the mueller team they fired him, promptly so, took him off of that team. But that is a big consideration. We expect Justice Department to be blind and be fair to all sides not have a clear political bias and express it so strongly. Dickerson but given that mueller took him off the investigation do you think this taints the larger project hes doing since you know the scope of that larger project . Its very serious to have someone inside, what they have to determine was he directing the investigation one way or the other while he was on the investigation, is that something they can repair and look and see if theres any bias. Obviously i dont think it taints the entire process but certainly taints that season of it, something should look at with any political investigation that he was on. We want our fbi agents to be neutral to be nonpolitical, not very actively engaged politically. Dickerson all right, senator lankford, thank for being with us. Thank you. Dickerson well be back in a moment. Even a swing set standoff. And we covered it, july first, twentyfifteen. Talk to farmers. We know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum another day of work. Why do you do it . Its not just a pay check, you actually like what you do. Even love it. And today, you can do things you never could before. Youre developing ai applications on the cloud. Finding insights hidden in decades of medical documents. And securing millions of iot sensors. So get back to it. And do the best work of your life. And do the best work of your life. The markets change. At t. Rowe price. 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Yours. Dickerson well be right back with a lot more face the nation and take a look at the record that about to be broken with tax cuts in the senate. Can you believe this . It is caught for the win. Once and for all. Touchdown, georgia. North carolina, theyre here. [captioning funded by cbs sports division] captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org starting quarterback, 51, if they win today, they clinch the nfc north. Nate drew brees at home versus the jets. Third best offense in the league. Bill sean mccoy passed the rushing mark and leads