Their tax reform bills. When are you expecting to see the final product of that . How different do you think its going to be from what you voted for . Good morning. The house moved forward pretty swiftly staying on a time line to pass the first significant tax reform in 39 years. The senate moved quickly right after and stuck to their time line as well. You dont always have these Conference Committees. There are significant differences both on the business side of the tax equation as well as on the individual side. My sense is that the Conference Committee got going right away, prior to the weekend last week and over the weekend. And i wouldnt be surprised if we are voting early next week at some point. I know we are heading into the final weeks of december. But i think its basically going to be taking each of the bills, taking the good provisions out of both and making it a better product. So i feel good about direction its going but probably towards next week. You mentioned we dont get to see these Conference Committees a lot. How much time do you get the o review what they cent send back before you are expected to vote up or down on it. Well have maybe an hour or hour and a half every day of just going over some of the policies, some of the discussions in the conference that are going on. We get a chance to emphasize our priorities, what the impacts are in sooner regions of the country as well as identify where some of the challenges are maybe with the senate bill or where we think the chairman should go in a different direction. One of the big differences between the house and Senate Version, the Senate Version including the repeal of the individual mandate. Right. If that makes it into the Conference Committee final bill, is that something you can support . You you know, the house has had several separate votes already on the Affordable Care act and repealing that. When we put together the bill in the house we didnt include the individual mandate. We stuck to tax policy only. The senate decided to include that i wouldnt be surprised if it stays in because it passed in the house before. It also gives some more ability to provide additional tax relief obviously, there is a dollar amount to it. Itsing interesting because even a state like minnesota, the individual mandate, the penalty on people that dont buy insurance, 79 of that penalty is falling on people with 50,000 of income or less. It has hit people with low and middle income hard. Rates expire in 2025, would you okay with that . If you are a family or a business, you want certainty to be able to plan for the future, save dollars, say what expenses are going to be and plan accordingly. Thats a big problem. Whether it is the bush tax cuts that expired and set up a cliff. I would prefer not to have a guessing game of whether congress is going to renew the rates again. Can we count on that. I want to make sure there are employers who want to bring back jobs, keep quarters here, in the United States, thats one reason why the house put all those rates out on a permanent basis. The senate bill largely doesnt touch the mortgage interest deduction. Would you be okay if the Senate Version of that goes through . I dont think thats going to be a defining differential that will hiccup the bill in the final product in any way. I mean the House Limited that mortgage deduction to 500 thuds for loan. I think the senate kepd kept it at a higher dollar amount. But everyone has an existing you are grandfathered in. If you have a higher loan on your house, you are paying that mortgage deduction interest, you are grandfathered in. But anyone over 500,000, i think its only 2. 5 or 2 of the population. Very small number. The main thing is keep important deductions like mortgage shoo, charitable deductions, property Tax Deductions and other provisions. You talked about the Conference Committee combining the best of the two bills. But right now, a cbs news poll found that 53 of people nationwide disapprove of the republican tax bill. Just 35 approve. Why is that so low . Do you think people arent getting the message here . Is that a problem . Yeah, i think thats clearly one of the challenges we have. Any time you pass major legislation there is a suspicion cast on congress, is this really going to help me . Is it going to impact me . What i always remind people is that the average family of four under the house bill that passed if you are earning 59,000, you are getting a tax cut of 1200. This is clearly driven towards middle income hard working folks goating money in their pockets. Its will making wages and boosting paychecks. We went through sort of the first economic recovery post the great recessions where we didnt have wages increase, actually median incomes fell. This is about boosting the economy and getting it moving in a positive direction. In 1986 there was a poll done there where 18 of the folks thought their taxes were going to go down and 41 thought they were going up. That was reversed when everyone saw the boom the growth the wages coming in. The suspicion that you talked about, callers have call on saying that some of that stems were the speed with which this moved through congress. A report written by several academic institutions said they rushed through a process and risk unintended consequences including things Like Companies shifting manufacturing capacity overseas, contradicting some of the express aims of this bill. The breaks could also include some of those breaks for individuals could turn into breaks for companies and other types of businesses not intended. Sure. By the original bill. This is always a part of tax policy. Details matter and you have got to make sure you gottet this right. Its one of the witnesses i have been taking all the feedback im getting. I think in the house we started out with a blueprint a while ago. We have had six years of hearings, 40 hearings taking place, 12 i think this year. Really focusing on the minutia and the detail of reform. Whether its International Reform or individual simplicity people are looking for in their tax filing or making sure, again, that we are helping Small Businesses. Small businesses have always been left out of the equation whenever we have done tax reform. Its always about big business or corporate relief. Its important to keep headquarters here. But Small Business has to be part of the equation when you know that 95 of them are filing as small passthrough entities not big employers. Lets go to the phone lines to give our viewers an opportunity to ask questions. Janice is up first, clinton, maryland, a democrat, janice, go ahead. Caller good morning, gentlemen. Mr. Paulson im so disappointed. It would be wonderful to hear the truth being spoken about this particular bill. But trickle down doesnt work. Its not iz supposed to work. You all just keep remarketing it and thinking that there is a sucker born every moment and that we are going to just buy what the latest Marketing Strategy is on selling this boondoggle that you want to give us. My grandmother told me it didnt work. Im 67 years old. My mother told me it doesnt work. Ive seen it doesnt work. If it did, mr. Brown back in kansas would have a booming economy right now and he does not. Congressman . First of all, janice, thanks for calling in. I should mention a couple things. One, i think we need to provide tax relief no matter where you live, maryland, what your age category. One of the lessons we learned from kansas which is a state that implemented passthrough tax reform and helped folks that prospect real Small Businesses right . In the house we put guardrails around making sure there arent going to be those fraud and abuse provisions and abuses that folks used in the past. We have really listened intently making sure that everyone is going to get relief and also making sure there are guardrails around the Small Business provisions so what happened in kansas doesnt happen at a broader level. Tom, republican, go ahead. Caller good morning. Thank you. This is the first time i finally got through. And thanks for cspan. My question is, like with this 20 Corporate Tax, so all loopholes will be taken away and they will pay 20 without fail . I dont believe that they should be doing this tax. Go ahead tom. You dont believe they should be doing this tax . Caller no. Right now everything it is not the best but these are things that should be happening when we are in really bad shape. Having growth of any kind, working well is fine. What you are doing right now is putting a whole bunch of stimulus money into the covers and you are going the call out growth. Congressman. First of all on the Corporate Tax rate. The United States has one of the highest Corporate Tax rates in the world, bar none. At 35 . Its one of the reasons we have seen a lot of companies when they sell overseas and we have customers overseas, they dont get their earnings back home. We have 2. 5 trillion kept overseas because we have an uncompetitive tax code. Our goal is to get earnings back home in the United States. Its not just american jobs we have been losing, its our headquarters, our research, our innovation. And making sure we have a competitive growing economy is having employers located here. We are also targets for acquisitions by foreign companies. We have got the reverse that if we are going to be competitive in todays world. Ray is in virginia. Good morning, an independent. Caller can i talk . Go ahead, ray. Caller hi. Im reading in the paper about Social Security and medicare. I worked all my life and paid into Social Security and also had medicare payments deducted from my paycheck and im still getting medicare payments deducted now that im on Social Security. But im read in the paper the paul ryan and other people are wanting to say they are entitlements and take money out of it and stop paying us as much money as they have been paying and reduce the amount of money we are getting. If they cut medicare like they want to, what are we going to do . Basically, the old people are going to retire, medicare doesnt cover all of my cancer procedures that i have right now. I am very, very upset about this, seeing that i have paid into it and they are talking about cutting everything back now. Thanks for the call. First of all, as ray mentioned, people should know there are no changes to social or medicare in the tax reform proposalal at all. Thats not even a component. One thing i will say is though whether you are a young person who is coming out of college and needs to pay down their Student Loans or whether you are a senior or a baby boomer about to retire, what is very important is making sure we have a competitive, growing economy because lot of seniors like ray or others who rely on medicare, who rely on Social Security want to make sure we have got a competitive growing economy so those programs are going to be well funded. We need to bring more revenue into the government, we need to have Stronger Economic growth. We have been sputtering at 2 growth annually for the last eight years. Thats below our historic norm. If we get to 3 or better we can make sure those programs are stronger for our future generations as well. One thing thats not included in the tax reform bill is a repeal of the medical device tax. You have been pushing for this. Why is this a big priority for you. This is a top priority of mine. It was put in place before the Affordable Care act act, 2. 3 not on your profits but on your sales of devices. We literally took one of our only industries in the country, one where we have real exports around the world and added the tax on sale. We made the hurdle higher for Small Companies that make life saving devices. Thats not in tax reform. Its part of the obamacare discussion and im making sure i do everything i can to get it done by tend of the year. The companies would be getting millions of new customers through the increasing coverage and this would be a way to help pay for that increase in coverage. Why do you disagree with that argument . It didnt pan out. As the numbers have shown we have lost 29,000 jobs since that took place. In the medical device industry. No the medical device industry, right. So since the tax is suspended right now. Its been suspended two years. Since it has been suspended we added more projects, more tax rate for a revenue neutral tax rate. I dont understand why you dont do that. It would stimulate growth. People would pay much less taxes. People would be falling over themselves coming to the u. S. To try to set up business here. I dont understand why you dont do that. Well, ron, as you mentioned, making the tax code simpler has been one of our key goals. So we actually do eliminate the bulk and the majority of all the different loopholes that special interests have been a part of, whether you are here in washington or all these exemptions that only apply to the privileged or those that have access to accountants and tax lawyers and can navigate the tax code. This is about making it so simple you will dpekt effectively be able to file your individual taxes on a postcardsized piece of paper. And by eliminating these different special interest deductions and loopholes you get to the point where now we are lower rates for every different income bracket. Where we are also making sure that our large and small employers are going to be competitive in the economy again. Thats going to help hard working taxpayers across the country. Thats the direction we have gone with simplisity. Ronald reagan wouldnt even recognize the tax code we have today because it has gotten so complex, so costly and so tough to take down to comply with. We have got ten minutes left with congressman eric paulson from minnesota. Speaking of minnesota, there is going to be an opening, apparently, in the Minnesota Senate delegation with al franken saying he will step aside in the coming weeks. Do you think it was the right thing for him to do to announce his resignation in coming weeks . I do. I think its the right thing for minnesota. And i think everything thats been happening around capitol hill, around the country for that matter regarding Sexual Harassment and those issues in that area, there should be no tolerance for this. I think he has done the right thing. He hasnt announced a specific resignation date but i expect its sometime in the next weeks, before the end of the year. Minnesotans pride themselves on having elected representatives that are effective, who had will stan up for different issues whatever their cause on either side of the aisle. Clearly he was in a position where he wasnting go to be effective. Him stepping aside is the right thing to do. The governor its predicted will make an announcement who that replacement will be for the next year before a special election can take place. Do you think roy moore should be on the senate if he wins. I dont think he should be on the ballot. I believe the vote is today. The senate has to deal with that if he wins. I suspect they have their own investigatory matters and they will have to handle it in their own away its going to be challenging. A special election in 2018 is the time frame talked b. Would you have interest in running for that senate seat . I dont think so. Being on my committee, im actually making a difference not for the constituents who i serve but for the entire state and having that voice is critical. Im going the keep focused on that. There are names surfacing that im excited about that may come forward. Who . Former govern audio tim poe lenny would be one. He has run statewide. Hes wellknown, well respected across the aisle. He would be a strong candidate if he threw his hat in the ring. Mark has been waiting in connecticut, line for republicans. Mark, go ahead. Caller hi. Thank you for taking my call. I have got a couple points about alabama. And also i would like to talk about the taxes, too. But i think America Needs to realize that any time we see an ambush blind side attack with unfounded accusations which come up 30 days before an important election, its inherently political, and its inherently dishonest in nature. When these highly controversial and emotional issues come up at the last second, i think they are not concerned with getting to the truth, but they are concerned with the worst form of politics, kind of like a drive by political attack where you run by and call a name at somebody and they are supposed to somehow immediately defend themselves. In our judicial system we have the right to confront our accuser. And with the just 30 days to an election, you dont have time to work out all the details of who is accusing you of, or what they are saying, formulate a proper response and get it out to all the people of alabama. Mark, do you feel that way about specifically just Sexual Misconduct allegations . What about all the other attack adds ths that run in any election cycle leading up to election day . Caller yeah, every form of highly controversial emotional issue thats thrown out only at the last minute to me just reeks of something thats dishonest. It may be true, but theres not time to bear out whether or not its true or not. And therefore, i mean, i basically think the people of alabama, if they believe in god, if they believe in a christ who is named jesus they have the pray to god and hope that they make the right decision. Congressman. I think its hard for voters to discern. Whether it is a different charge that may be levelled in a political ad or its something thats in the news every day. I think the voters of alabama have to discern and decide that. Its no different than when i run or when one of my colleagues runs in an election and has that political ad or has to di