There will be differences between tax reform bills proposed by Republicans in the House and Senate, but at the end of the day, Sen. Marco Rubio said he does not see a clash occurring between the two chambers over the bill.
"I don't see it as a clash," the Florida Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" co-anchor Sandra Smith.
"Tax reform is hard. That's why it hasn't been done in 25 years. It's not a clash. In the end I'm confident, cautiously optimistic, that we will get a result."
Rubio said one of the things he knows will be different in the two bills is the matter of the state and local taxes exemption.
"I live, you know, in Florida and I do my taxes," Rubio said. "I get to write off my property tax, a portion of the sales tax, if you're itemizing."
Many people are angry over possibly losing that exemption, but Rubio said what really matters is how much people will be paying overall, not how they get to that figure.
"While that may be going away, there are other things that are going up," Rubio said. "The overwhelming majority of Americans who need a tax cut are going to get one, so in the end, it doesn't really matter . . . what matters most of all is how much are you paying, because i think that's what people care about at the end of the day, how much they are paying."
The bill being unveiled Thursday, meanwhile, is just a starting point, Rubio said, and he anticipates there will be things in it he'd like to change.
"If the child tax credit is not high enough or if it's not refundable, I'll want to change that, because I think we have to do that for working families — people out there that are raising two, three, four children," Rubio said. "Both parents work really hard. We can't raise their taxes. They need a tax cut. It's expensive to raise kids."
Rubio, in an op-ed piece for The New York Times over the weekend, called for doubling the per-child tax credit to $2,000 and making it refundable against payroll tax liability. He also said that the House tax bill falls short in that regard, and does not know if the Senate will add more.
"I don't know if they'll get to that number," Rubio said, 'But I think it will be better. I expect it'll be better than the House position. And we'll keep working on it. Look, if I don't like it, I can file an amendment on the Senate floor. And I am pretty confident I have the votes."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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