what s ahead. sure. they re in the middle of this tax reform movement right now. and they have good momentum for it. today senate decided to put the individual mandate of the obamacare in the bill. they have 50 votes for this plan which also has a deal to pass alexander murray, which people like on the subsidies. that s 50 votes as the senate is currently constituted. senator mcconnell has laid out a time line where they may move in this say the first week of december. this election in alabama is december 12. they have 50 votes today. if the calendar is pushed on tax reform and jones beats more or jones beats whoever in alabama, we re not at 50 anymore. now we re at 49 on the republican tax plan. so this situation in alabama right now may be the thing that keeps the republicans on congress on track. because if they ve got 50 votes for this deal with the individual mandate repeal in it, they can t afford to lose even one. so did the the onus to get this done before this. based o
senate with two big pushes to get it done. tax reform now under the gun to get that finished in the next few months. this is something even though trump has taken all of these executive actions, they are mostly i m doing barack obama executive action. while he is kind of getting criticism for taking executive action, it s really going back. leland: what do you think from your thoughts on talking to members of congress on the hill, what takes precedent? is it the tax reform movement? is it maybe the new movement on iran or is it anything that has to do with health care? we talk about it like it s not going to happen. even the protection, and there were something like that where there is some leeway with republicans did they want to get this done. they want to have those protections in place. tax reform is the big major legislative win. this administration has zero so
is so important. the reason that they say that the income rates are tax rates are so high like 35% is because we have all these loopholes in the system which we have to pay for through paperwork like the mortgage interest and state tax deductions. if we made it simpler for everyone else, we would save more money that we wouldn t have to have the tax rate so high. that s the opportunity being presented to mitt romney. come out in favor of lower rates for everybody on all forms of income, maybe even a flat tax of 15%. you pay 15% on everything. whether it s wages, salaries, capital gains, doesn t matter. this is an opportunity for him to do that. and get out front of the tax reform movement. varney & company, 9:20, fox business network. you better show up. i most certainly will. thanks, stu. speaking of mitt romney, polls show he has a solid lead in south carolina but the campaign guru dick morris says newt gingrich after that debate performance has a secret weapon? not sec
of the tax. top 1% of income earners pay 38% of the tax. and the tax rate, the effective tax rate of the so-called rich is three times that of the middle class. this idea about the rich not pay something just preposterous, the math proves it. this is demagoguery, politics, political theater. that is why he couldn t even get this proposal through a democrat congress a year ago when his party controlled both house. steve, it really strikes me, i feel everywhere i go and all the conversations that we listen to on all of this, people raise their hands and say, why don t we just completely overhaul the tax system? what we need is true tax reform in this country so, yes, corporations will pay a fair tax rate because we all know that they get out of paying lots of taxes right now. there are tons of loopholes wealthy people can carve out. why not have a huge tax reform movement in this country and you tried to start that movement when you ran for president. you talked about a flat tax. why a
king? he was at national journal last week. we had a long conversation. he said look, i m not speaking for grover norquist i m just asking you to give me the history. he said look, the pledge grew out of tax reform efforts led by ronald reagan in 1986 because the tax reform movement did not want to increase taxes. remember back then, those of us who were around, that was tax revenue neutral. it changed the code but didn t raise tax didn t increase taxes. he said from then on, the posture of that group was if you sign this pledge, you will never in your office that you are running for or in, vote to increase taxes on a net basis. grover s opinion is the pledge isn t to him, it s to the voters who evaluate that pledge in whatever contest you re running in, the republican primary or general election. i remember ronald reagan saying the sound you hear around me is the cement cracking around my feet, when he made a compromise because circumstances changed. several times during