It is not necessary to change Senate rules for upcoming votes on healthcare and tax reform, as both can be accomplished with the 51-vote rule, Sen. Mike Lee said Wednesday.
"We can accomplish both of these things with existing rules, with 51 votes," the Utah Republican told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program.
"We use a rule called budget reconciliation. On both of those we can get past the 60 vote cloture. There is no need to change the Senate rules; the rules allow for us to do what we need to do with 51 [votes]."
Meanwhile, there are still sticking points on tax reform, said Lee, with many in the Senate having "real concerns" about the proposed border adjustment tax. However, he did not agree with a Wall Street Journal report over the weekend that said tax reform is dying because of pushback from the status quo.
"I think that part of it is dead," said Lee of the border measure. "I don't think that part can move forward. I do think tax reform as a whole can make it, despite the doomsday predictions by people at The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere, I think this can still happen. Doesn't mean it can be easy but I think we can make it happen."
Lee also said he thinks it's "doable" to get the corporate tax rate down from 35 percent to the 15 percent President Donald Trump is seeking.
The senator also discussed his new book, "Written Out of History, the Forgotten Founders Who Fought Big Government" saying that while modern institutions teach Americans to accept big government as a fact of life, there are several people who have been written out as their narrative "wasn't compatible with our modern progressive mind set."
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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