ICYMI: Hensarling on CNBC's Kudlow Report
House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) appeared yesterday evening on CNBC’s Kudlow Report to discuss the need for comprehensive tax reform and the president’s plan to raise taxes on our nation’s job creators. Below are highlights from the interview:
Hensarling on the need to extend current tax rates and for comprehensive tax reform:
“I hope we’ll take [the vote] soon, because obviously the market needs some certainty, particularly after we looked at the last jobs report – third straight month where job growth has decreased. We now have, looking at the labor force participation rate, the worst employment record of an administration in 30 years. So we need some certainty. And then frankly, Larry, we want to go beyond that. We need a tax code that is fairer, flatter, simpler, more competitive, which is what we have in our budget. The president threatens the single largest tax increase in America's history that, number one, would even further decimate the economy, and number two, doesn't even make a dent in the $11 trillion of additional debt that he's going to plow on this economy as he drives us down the road to bankruptcy.”
Hensarling on the president’s budget:
“You can give the president every single job-harming tax increase that he has asked for and that's like 16 percent of the $11 trillion additional debt he's going to put on the $5 trillion [he’s already accumulated]. Number one, the whole thing is a red herring. You cannot tax your way into economic prosperity. You cannot tax your way out of this incredible debt crisis that the president has foisted upon us.”
Hensarling on the president’s plan to raise taxes on job creators:
“That tax increase, you well know, for the top two bracket sets, is aimed at small businesses. And then with your Buffett Rule, that affects not 1 percent, not .1 percent – .01 percent of the additional federal spending. Again, the whole thing is a red herring and it’s just going to further harm job growth.”
Hensarling on America’s future without substantive tax reform:
“Larry, with the spending trajectory that this administration has put us on, if they don't change it, we're going to have tax rates that are going to make the new socialist government in France blush. We will have the single highest marginal income tax rate in the entire industrialized world. I want to know one example in history of a country that has managed to either bail out, spend, tax, or borrow its way to economic prosperity.”
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For additional information, contact:
House Republican Conference Press Office (conferencepress@mail.house.gov)
