win for big business, permanently slashing corporate taxes from 35% down to just 20%. how does lowering the corporate tax rate help middle class americans? 70% of all gains from corporate rate reductions go to wages. reporter: all these cuts come with a hefty price tag, costing the government roughly $1.5 trillion over the next decade. top republicans, including the president, had promised to reduce the deficit. our budget deficits are massive. this country, we lose money all the time, for years and years we ve had deficits. reporter: but now what we re doing is, we re taking out a $1.5 trillion loan, and what we re doing with that money is, we re buying an appreciable asset. reporter: to pay for this, republicans are proposing to change popular tax breaks. gone would be that student loan interest deduction. and the deduction for medical expenses. the mortgage interest deduction would be slashed in half.
have tried to get tax reform for many years. there was work that dave camp did, the blueprint. but there isn t time for members of congress to really look at this and do a bipartisan outreach if that s what they want. i think bipartisan is always better because at least they re durable policies, policies that will stay in place. that model in 1986 was good because it was bipartisan. also because we used the reduction of tax breaks to truly offset the rate reductions and other things that helped create a comprehensive tax reform. i don t think the timeliness of this matters near as much as getting it right. make sure they re pro growth and have the distribution effects that we want and build as much support as possible so this is something that adds real permanence to the tax bill so
even the president s close economic advisors say that s spread out over a period of time, about eight years to be exact. it amounts to $500 a year. does this plan go far enough? well, the framework is there, sandra. we don t have all the details. that will be flushed out. if you look at the rate reductions, that will provide immediate relief for american families, what they need. the simplicity of the tax code going from 75,000 pages down to a simple system will also give families more time and resources to spend on other things other than tax prep and then by incentivizing companies to locate and stay here, bring profits from overseas back here i think there will be more employment opportunities for the american people. some of it is hard to quantify. sandra: if it is that simple and the average american worker gets a pay raise and we see the
i believe in the end i might do better. what do you say? it s false. it s never been true that under republican tax cuts plan. the economy has done better under democrats going back to nixon when you had pro-growth efforts where you had higher tax rates than what republicans had. this whole notion you re going to cut taxes is false based on the record. what about the point he could pay more? is there any reality to that or is that just a whole lot of hot air? two things. first of all, the two biggest rate reductions in taxes we had in the last 50 years were under jfk in the 60s and ronald reagan in the 80s. jfk was cut from 90% or something. we went from 90 to 70 and reagan took it from 70 to 28%. you guys know this. in the 80s when reagan cut the highest tax rate from 70 to 28%,
is there enough left over on roughly one third of the top of other programs to cut? look, you re going to save a lot by getting rid of obamacare, i estimate a trillion dollars over ten years. leland: hold on, we had bill cassidy on from louisiana and his total savings he has in his repeal and replace bill is 5%. that s a lot of money, but it s certainly not enough to pay for all of this stuff. i think you re going to lower i don t think he s taking into account this is going to lower health care costs system-wide and going to save money, but i ll take your point. look, donald trump has said we re going to deal with social security and medicare down the road once the economy is moving again. i think that s the right approach. i ve got to say this, the guy has only been in office one week and as i see things, he s done more in a week to help the economy in a week than obama did, and the tax cut is essential, we are going to close loopholes and help pay for rate reductions, if you br