The proposed House GOP tax bill is the best plan that could have been devised, Rep. Sean Duffy said on Friday, while denying that Republicans are bowing to pressure from the left by not lowering taxes for the nation's wealthiest Americans.
"This is simple stuff," the Wisconsin Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" program. "Democrats play warfare. They don't want to lower taxes for wealthy Americans. We have abided by that. Some may pay more."
Meanwhile, the bill simplifies a code that has expanded too far over the years, and lobbyists are angry, Duffy said.
"This is a town with 6,000 [or] 10,000 lobbyists," Duffy said. "Everyone has come here. They have carved out their section of the code. It caters to their special interest. When you take away the loopholes and make the code simpler they get upset about it. We expect that."
But the plan is to make America competitive again and jumpstart the economy, not to give favors to the special interest who come to town, Duffy said.
Democrats, he continued, are not happy because their wealthy constituents won't get a tax break through the new bill, even though the left has asked for the breaks.
"When we abide by the Democratic request not giving wealthy tax breaks, they freak out," Duffy said. "Yesterday, we said the mortgage interest deduction you can write up to a million dollars. We reduce that to $500,000. Democrats are saying someone has a $1 million dollar mortgage they should be able to write that off. Middle income Americans don't have that."
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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