Former Reagan Budget Director David Stockman predicts that President Donald Trump’s grand tax-reform campaign promise will never come to fruition.

“There will not be a tax cut, there will not be a reform, there will not be a bill,” he told Fox Business Network’s Neil Cavuto.

Trump campaigned last year on a promise of comprehensive tax reform. But Republicans have made little tangible progress toward that ambitious goal so far, Reuters reported.

Republicans are determined to deliver the first tax overhaul in more than three decades. The goal is to cut tax rates for individuals and corporations, and eliminate some tax breaks to pay for the cuts.

The U.S. economy is in a steady expansion and stock markets are rising. But the tax cuts being weighed by congressional Republicans, with encouragement from Trump, are on a scale normally reserved for times of economic hardship and intended to drive annual economic growth above 3 percent.

Stockman explained that slashing payroll taxes would be more helpful to average U.S. citizens than cutting income taxes that have been benefiting the rich for years.

“I think we need to have a big tax cut, it should be in payroll taxes for 160 million people, most of them out in fly over America who are paying far more in payroll taxes than income,” said Stockman, who served as a Republican U.S. Representative from the state of Michigan (1977–1981).

“If you want to help fly over America, which is what Trump was elected by, forget the income tax, the rich people have had a ride like there is no tomorrow for 30 years the Fed has been inflating their financial assets like there is no tomorrow,” he said.

For their part, House Republicans plan a retreat away from the Capitol next week to discuss a tax overhaul that congressional leaders have been working on for month, the Associated Press reported. The retreat is set for Wednesday, but Republicans aren't disclosing details. GOP leaders have promised to publicly release outlines of their tax plan in the coming week.

House Republicans say the retreat will give them a chance to discuss the plan and ask questions.

Meanwhile, U.S. Senate Republicans earlier this week reportedly have reached a tentative budget deal that could allow tax reform legislation to eliminate as much as $1.5 trillion in revenues over 10 years through tax cuts, raising the odds that their planned tax overhaul would expand the federal deficit.

Two members of the Senate Budget Committee, Republicans Pat Toomey and Bob Corker, announced the formal agreement late on Tuesday, but their joint news release did not provide dollar figures for revenue reduction or tax cuts, Reuters reported.

The prospective tax cuts are part of closed-door talks among 12 Senate Budget Committee Republicans who are drafting a fiscal 2018 budget measure needed to help the 100-member Senate pass a tax overhaul with as few as 51 Republicans votes and prevent Democrats from blocking the legislation.

“There is no Republican majority, and if they don’t do it through reconciliation it will never get out of the Senate, you don’t have 60 votes in the Senate for anything,” said Stockman, who was the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (1981–1985) under President Ronald Reagan.

(Newsmax wires services contributed to this report).