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Jason Smith · The David Rubenstein Show

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Jason Smith of Missouri, as chairman of the House Ways
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: and Means Committee, which was responsible for drafting tax legislation,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: had a chance to ask him how the new tax
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: legislation is going to change the way the economy operates.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the overall bill itself. Now, the bill
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: has passed the House Ways and Means Committee. Now you
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: need to get a rule from the Rules Committee, and
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: then you take it to the floor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Is that the way it works?
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: Pretty close to that.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: Since we're using the rules of reconciliation, which is a
• 0:31
  Speaker 4: tool to help the Senate get the fifty one votes
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: to pass pass any legislation, there's certain parameters that we
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: have to fall under. We had to pass the Budget resolution.
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: The Budget Resolution was passed by both the House and
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: the Senate, and it gave us specific instructions. And within
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: that budget resolution, it instructed eleven different committees in the
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: House of Representatives. Ten of the eleven have marked up.
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  Speaker 4: The last one is finishing up right now, the ad Committee,
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  Speaker 4: And once all eleven are done their bills that they
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: marked up, it goes to the Budget Committee.
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  Speaker 1: So let's talk about how we got to where we
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  Speaker 1: are today in coming up with the bill that you
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  Speaker 1: have passed through the committee. Did you meet with the Treasury,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: with the Senate Finance Committee people, and the President from
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  Speaker 1: time to time? And how regularly did you meet with
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  Speaker 1: these people?
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  Speaker 4: So we had the Big Six meetings, which was referred
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  Speaker 4: to as the Speaker of the House, the Leader of
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  Speaker 4: the Senate, so mister Thune, also Chairman Crapo of the
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  Speaker 4: Finance Committee, myself, It had Kevin Hassett economic advisor, and
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: then also the Treasury Secretary of Besson, and so the
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: six of us met quite often. Typically it's about every
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: week to two weeks, and we've been doing that for
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: several months right now, discussing different tax provisions. But in
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: regards to my counterpart over on the Senate side, Chairman Crepo,
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: we talk, our teams communicate NonStop, and we've been working
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: pretty well hand in glove.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: President get involved too. Did you meeting the President in
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: the Oval office talk about the bill or how often
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: did that happen?
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  Speaker 3: I do.
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  Speaker 4: Our President is very accessible and he calls me when
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: he wants to talk tax or trade or some other
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  Speaker 4: items that's within our committee's jurisdiction, and so I've met
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  Speaker 4: with him several times. On this on this tax bill.
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  Speaker 4: Twice in the last two weeks in the Oval office.
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  Speaker 4: I shared with him the main priorities that he asked
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  Speaker 4: us to deliver on, and what I could deliver on
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  Speaker 4: and what I couldn't deliver on.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so let's go through some of those.
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  Speaker 1: So the main thing that he wanted, I thought, was
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  Speaker 1: to get the tax cuts that we'd had before extended
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: for corporations and for individuals, so individuals will have their
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: tax rate be the same as it's currently Is that right.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: That's exactly right.
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: The first thing in his first priority was permanency of
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: his expiring two thousand and seven tax cuts, and some
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: of the main items that we're expiring was all the
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: individual rates would go up. This makes the current rates
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: that you're paying taxes right now will stay the current rates,
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: regardless of what tax bracket that you're in. The child
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  Speaker 4: tax credit was going to be slashed in half. It
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: would have went from two thousand to one thousand. We
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: made permanent the two thousand dollars child tax credit, the
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  Speaker 4: guaranteed deduction, which ninety one percent of Americans used to
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  Speaker 4: file their taxes, that got doubled in twenty seventeen. It's
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  Speaker 4: roughly fifteen thousand dollars per person right now, and we
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: made that permanent as well.
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  Speaker 1: So let's talk about things that President was famous for
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  Speaker 1: morning and the bill No tax on tips. Is that
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: because people getting tips or paying a lot of taxes.
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  Speaker 4: The idea of the no tax on tips to the
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  Speaker 4: President was he was actually having dinner at one of
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  Speaker 4: his properties in Nevada during the campaign and the waitress said,
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  Speaker 4: can you not tax my tips? And that's where the
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  Speaker 4: idea came from from a waitress in Nevada to the President.
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  Speaker 3: And so what you know, what we've.
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  Speaker 4: Done within this bill is to eliminate the tax on
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  Speaker 4: tips altogether.
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  Speaker 1: What about no tax on overtime? What if you take
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  Speaker 1: care of that?
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  Speaker 3: We did.
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  Speaker 4: We eliminated no tax on overtime. It affects about eighty
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  Speaker 4: million workers across the country. And we put special guidelines
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  Speaker 4: both in no Tax on tips and overtime that it
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  Speaker 4: can't be high compensated employees. For example, by definition within statute,
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  Speaker 4: a high compensated employee as someone who makes more than
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  Speaker 4: one hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year.
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  Speaker 2: What about now?
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  Speaker 1: President also talked about no tax on Social Security what
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  Speaker 1: about that.
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  Speaker 4: So within the rules of reconciliation, by statute, you cannot
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  Speaker 4: touch social Security, and so we wanted to make sure
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  Speaker 4: we delivered on this priority in reconciliation. And if you
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: want to know about the Social Security tax in like
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  Speaker 4: nineteen eighty one, it was created that you were tax
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  Speaker 4: free off your first twenty five thousand dollars for an
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  Speaker 4: individual or thirty two thousand for a married couple, and
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  Speaker 4: that hasn't changed in forty three, forty four years. And
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  Speaker 4: so there is an item within the tax code that
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  Speaker 4: you get an added standard deduction if you're a senior,
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  Speaker 4: if you're sixty five years old or older. It's currently
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  Speaker 4: about two thousand dollars that could be added on top
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: of your guaranteed deduction, and so we've increased that four
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: thousand dollars per person so that their deduction would be
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  Speaker 4: six thousand. And that equates to anyone who makes less
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  Speaker 4: than seventy five thousand dollars per person, so seventy five
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  Speaker 4: for an individual or one hundred and fifty for a
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  Speaker 4: married that they would not be paid any taxes on
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: their Social Security because of the tax cuts from the
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: income code.
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  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the famous carried interest provision.
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  Speaker 3: I've never heard of it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well I should disclose.
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  Speaker 1: I don't collect carried interest the way I've structured my
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: affairs because I didn't like being criticized for it so much.
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  Speaker 1: So I'm not a carried interest recipient any longer. It
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  Speaker 1: is reporting the press that the President of the United
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  Speaker 1: States likes to get rid of carried interest, and you
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  Speaker 1: didn't do.
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  Speaker 2: That in this bill, So is he going to be upset?
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  Speaker 4: So throughout this whole process, David, I've had to thread
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  Speaker 4: a needle. We have one of the smallest majorities in
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  Speaker 4: the history of Congress, both in the House and the Senate,
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  Speaker 4: and so I can only lose three people in passing
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: this tax bill, and so trying to thread that needle
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  Speaker 4: where people are in the extremes in all areas, whether
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: it's the green credits, whether it's salt, whether it's other
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  Speaker 4: various tax provisions. Just trying to find that balance has
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  Speaker 4: been what I've been striving and trying to to do
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  Speaker 4: in this bill. In regards to carried interest, I got
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  Speaker 4: a letter from thirty five different members of our Congress
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  Speaker 4: for being committee chairman that was saying, do not put
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  Speaker 4: this in the bill. We can't support the bill. It
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  Speaker 4: was a priority. The President wanted it. The President had
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  Speaker 4: a lot of priorities, and I delivered on most of them.
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  Speaker 1: What about the other one which doesn't affect me, either
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the sports stadium exemption or something.
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  Speaker 2: Is that did that get in there?
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  Speaker 3: Or what I delivered on that one?
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  Speaker 2: Oh?
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  Speaker 3: Okay, So, but you're going to be fine.
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  Speaker 4: You're going to be fine, David, because you've purchased the
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  Speaker 4: team before it.
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  Speaker 2: Takes Oh yeah, okay, good, thank you.
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  Speaker 3: So it's only new owners.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, good. So I'm glad to hear that.
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  Speaker 1: So okay, I was thinking, oh, thanking, okay, thanks very much.
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  Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
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  Speaker 1: So I saw it, which is a state and local
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  Speaker 1: tax deduction. It was limited to ten thousand dollars. Now
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  Speaker 1: you've increased its thirty thousand dollars.
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  Speaker 4: Yes, we increased it three hundred percent because it was
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  Speaker 4: currently ten thousand. Now it's at three three hundred percent increase.
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  Speaker 4: It's thirty thousand.
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  Speaker 2: Unless you have a larger income than which case it
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  Speaker 2: goes down a bit.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's thirty thousand. If you make less than four
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  Speaker 4: hundred thousand dollars. A year and then it starts phasing
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  Speaker 4: back down to ten thousand. So we've we've tried to
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  Speaker 4: find what is that that good spot. Even talking to
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  Speaker 4: my ranking member, he's like, salts just salts an obstacle
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  Speaker 4: for both parties in that sense.
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  Speaker 3: And so.
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  Speaker 4: We've checked numbers like I've I've got numbers from Treasury
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  Speaker 4: and the irs of the different Salt congressional districts within
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  Speaker 4: our conference, and this thirty thousand dollars cap that we
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  Speaker 4: have under four hundred thousand will provide more than ninety
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  Speaker 4: percent of every one of our SALT members districts coverage
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  Speaker 4: under this.
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  Speaker 3: So it's a balance.
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  Speaker 4: It's not everything that some of the SALT members want,
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  Speaker 4: but I have members of our conference that doesn't even
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  Speaker 4: think you should be able to deduct one dollar, let
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  Speaker 4: alone thirty thousand dollars.
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  Speaker 3: But it's a fair balance approach.
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  Speaker 1: When do you think the bill will actually become law?
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  Speaker 1: Is it before the end of the year or before
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  Speaker 1: the end of the Congress.
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  Speaker 4: My goal is July fourth. I want the President to
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  Speaker 4: be able to sign into law on July fourth. That's
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  Speaker 4: my goal, and that's the president's goal.
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  Speaker 2: You are from the Great state of Missouri, Missouri.
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  Speaker 3: Is there any other all right?
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  Speaker 1: And did you grow up in a city, a big
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  Speaker 1: city like Saint Louis or something like that.
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  Speaker 4: So the congressional district that I represent, David, my family's
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  Speaker 4: called it home for seven generations. My hometown is less
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  Speaker 4: than five people. It's called Salem, Missouri. It's the county seat.
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  Speaker 4: The population of my county is only about sixteen thousand.
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  Speaker 2: So what is the main business of your district? Is
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  Speaker 2: it farming?
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  Speaker 3: Agriculture?
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  Speaker 4: Agriculture without a doubt in manufacturing.
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  Speaker 3: I grew up working on my grandparents farm.
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  Speaker 4: My father was an auto mechanic, and so where I
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  Speaker 4: lived was we had a single white trailer right next
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  Speaker 4: to his auto repair business, which was just a two
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  Speaker 4: bay unit, and my grandparents farm was three miles away,
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  Speaker 4: and so I always spent the weekends, the summers, the
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  Speaker 4: evenings working on the farm. And now I own that farm.
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  Speaker 4: I purchased it when my granddad died.
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  Speaker 2: But you decided to get into politics. So you went
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  Speaker 2: to college.
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  Speaker 3: Where University of Missouri in Colombia. Graduated with two degrees.
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  Speaker 4: At twenty business administration emphasis finance and agriculture economics. And
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  Speaker 4: then I went to law school three days later.
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  Speaker 1: All right, so you're a lawyer as well, but you
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: did not practice law.
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  Speaker 4: I practiced law for just about a year and then
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  Speaker 4: got elected to the Missouri State House when I was
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  Speaker 4: twenty four. Was one of the youngest members in the
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  Speaker 4: Missouri State House. I became the majority whip, the youngest
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: Speaker pro tem in Missouri's history, and then ran for
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  Speaker 4: Congress at thirty two.
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  Speaker 1: Thirty two, So you got elected and what year did
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: you get elected Congress?
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  Speaker 4: Initially it was June of twenty thirteen. I will never
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  Speaker 4: forget my first day I got sworn in. My predecessor
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  Speaker 4: was Congresswoman Joe and Emerson, and she led me down
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: to the floor. She was there when I got sworn
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  Speaker 4: in entire with the Missouri delegation, and she's like, do
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: you know how to get back to your office, which
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  Speaker 4: my office was her old office at that time in
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  Speaker 4: the Rayburn House Office building.
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  Speaker 3: And I was like, yeah, I can do it.
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  Speaker 1: Right, So okay, So now, how do you go from
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  Speaker 1: being a young member of Congress to being the Waysey
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Means Committee used to be Seniority?
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  Speaker 2: How did you become the chairman of the Waysey Means Committee.
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  Speaker 3: It's all about relationships.
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  Speaker 4: I go back to that first day that when I
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: was sworn into office. My senator at that time was
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: Roy Blunt, and Roy Blunt pulled me aside and he said, Jason,
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: there's two.
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  Speaker 3: Ways you can be effective in Washington, d C.
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  Speaker 4: One you can be here for twenty years and just
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: build natural seniority, or two you can build relationships. And
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: so I made it a focus to schedule five to
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: fifteen minute meetings, coffees teas with every member of Congress
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: that would meet with me whenever I came up here,
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: because they all knew who I was, being the new
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: special election kid, but I didn't know who the other
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: four hundred and thirty four were. And so I just
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: started going through getting to know them, not asking for anything,
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: but just figure out where we have some common ground,
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: all right.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: So it used to be on seniority. You work your
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: way up up and then you become a chairman of
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: the committee. Now the members of each caucus decide who
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: they want to have. And so you ran for an
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: election as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. I did,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: and you got elected the last congress I did.
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: I've been elected twice now, as Chairman of the House
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: Ways and Means Committee.
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  Speaker 3: I worked really hard.
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  Speaker 4: I traveled to forty two of the fifty states, campaigning
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: for my colleagues and for candidates in eighty seven different
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: congressional districts. I did more than three hundred TV appearance
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: appearances trying to push the Republican message. And I met
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: with every one of the thirty plus members of the
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: Steering Committee multiple times, giving them the pitch of why
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: I should lead the Ways and Means Committee and under
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: what leadership I would lead on.
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  Speaker 1: So what was your most effective argument for why somebody
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: from a farming district in Missouri should be the chairman
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: of the Ways and Means Committee at a relatively young age.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: Believe that our party is not the party of seniority
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: or who's next in line, but it's the party who's
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: best for the job.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: And I felt like I was the best.
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: Person for the job. That's why I was running for it.
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't have wouldn't have done it. And I said
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: that if you elect me to be the chairman of
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: this committee, that the policies it's within the Ways and
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: Means jurisdiction, tax trade, healthcare, social security needs to be
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: the policies that reflect the priorities of the working class.
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: I'm a product of the working class.
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  Speaker 3: I grew up in a.
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: Single by trailer most of my life, and then we
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: upgraded to a double wide. My mother was a factory worker,
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: just so that we had health insurance. That's how we
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: made it by. But I am so grateful for how
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: I was raised, because it doesn't matter like what family
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: you're born into. If you get a quality education and
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: you're determined to work hard and not give up, you
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: can accomplish just about anything. And that's how I view
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: everything that I've done, whether it's becoming the Ways Means chairman,
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: or when I ran for Congress, there were twenty six
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: other Republicans that I had to beat out in order
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: to just become the nominee to take my predecessor spot.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: So when you were elected chairman of the Weaseley Means Committee,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: did you call your mother and explain it to her
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: and was she ecstatic or what did you say?
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: She's like, what does that mean?
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Does she tell everybody her son is the chairman of
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: the Waisley Means Committee?
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: Or she doesn't she doesn't like people don't care.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: I don't care.
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  Speaker 3: My friends and neighbors don't care. It's so funny.
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: I woke up this morning with the text message from
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: a high school classmate who's a school teacher in my hometown.
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: She's like, why is your face continuing to pop up
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: on the TV?
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: Like are you important? I was like, no, not at all.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: If you want to call the President of United States?
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: How long does it take before you get a callback?
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: Most time when I call him, he answers, he's He
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: is the most accessible.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: Executive I have or worked with.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: I'll wake up in the morning sometimes from a text
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: message from the President at five thirty in the morning
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: and it's sent to me at like two thirty, and
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, no, he knows I was sleeping, you know.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: So he's always working. He'll text you. I can text him.
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: He is so productive in regards to talking policy.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Now that you've got this bill behind you, what is
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: the highest priority when you get the bill through the
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: House and the Senate and you've ultimately how he his
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: life worth ceremony?
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Is it to deal with trade? Is that your next
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: big issue?
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: So multiple things.
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  Speaker 4: We have to get this bill signed into law, delivered
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: for the American people, but after it's signed into law,
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: I'm going to hold I'm going to hold Treasury accountable
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: to make sure that they're implementing the tax bill how
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: Congress passed it.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: It's not always been fun.
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  Speaker 4: That's going to be a big priority to make sure
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: that the tax codes implemented as the priority that we're
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: passing Congress.
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  Speaker 3: But trade, trade is super poor.
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  Speaker 4: Ninety six percent of the world's consumers are outside of
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: the United States. I represent a farming congressional district. We
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: were dependent on trade. We grow rice, corn, cotton, beef,
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: cattle in my district, and so we need more markets.
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: We need to eliminate those those non tariff barriers.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Let's suppose you have all this in the big bill,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: and let's suppose it passes. The total cost of the
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: big beautiful bill, your parts and other things, is it
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: four trillion dollars or something like that.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: It was the House number was you could not exceed
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: four and a half trillion, Yeah, trillion. And then they
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: had this ratchet item that if you didn't didn't make
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: two trillion dollars worth of spending cuts, it would ratchet
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: down to four trillion. And so our bill actually comes
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: in below four trillion dollars.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: But part of the Big Beautiful Bill is to have
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: the increase of the debt limit. Right now, we have
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: a debt limit that's pull more more or less, it's
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: sort of expired a while ago. But you're going to
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: pass in this Big Beautiful bill as it a five
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: trillion dollar increase in the debt limit something like that.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: So you're right.
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: The debt limit, David expired at the first of the year.
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: We're operating under extraordinary measures right now is what they
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: refer to, and it's projected that will last us some
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: time in July.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: And so we have to address that.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: And part of the bill that we voted out a
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: committee increase the debt limit. It increased the debt limit
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: four trillion dollars, which was in the budget instructions that
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: we were required to do. The Senate instructions is higher
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: with a higher debt limit, and so that's one of
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: those things that I'm sure that is going to be
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: figured out throughout.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: I just get rid of the debt limit completely.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: We've raised it over ninety times since it first was
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: put into effect in the early part of the twentieth century.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: We've never really complied with it, Why not just get
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: rid of it? I think President Trump said he would
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: like to get rid of it.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: At one point I was about to say, you, David,
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: you and President Trump are exactly agreeing on that issue.
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: And I think there's a lot of members of both
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: parties that that view the debt limit as like a
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: very poison pill that individuals have to worry about, and
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: when you think about defaulting on US debt, that can
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: create a big problem.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: So well, you think it's unlikely that we're going to
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: get rid of the debt limit in this bill, We're
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: just going to increase it.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Probably.
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: I tell everyone, I've said this before the bills were
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: out there, is that pretty much everything's on the table
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: because we don't know what is needed to thread that
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: needle to get the votes. People will talk about different
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: tax brackets or whatever, and I would just say everything's
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: on the table.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Is your expectation the Senate will take your bill and
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: say it's really great and we're going to pass it,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: or it's going to come back to you.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: So I'm sure they will make changes. We've been working
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: with Senate Finance. I've been meeting with numerous Senators have
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: been calling me telling me their priorities. We put a
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: lot of the senator's priorities in this bill.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: So what is the best way to get something in
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: the tax bill? Or was the best way is it
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: to call you up personally? Text you certain lobbyists have accessed.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: What's the best way to convince a member of the
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Ways and Means Committee or the chairman put something in
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: the bill or take something out?
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: So I changed how we run the Ways and Means
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: Committee from my very first committee hearing. My first committee
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: hearing as chairman was not in Washington. We did it
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: in Petersburg, West Virginia, at a lumberyard, and we brought
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: in a restaurant owner, a coal miner, working moms, and
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: farmers just to hear of the issues that they were
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: facing in today's economy. I set up ten different tax
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: teams where I picked ten different members of my committee
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: to chair for over the last year, where they traveled
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: to more than twenty three different states themselves, had more
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: than one hundred and twenty site visits. They met with
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: stakeholders to listen to all items within the code, and
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: then we brought that all back.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Let's suppose I'm just a lobbyist. I have one provision.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Is it to wait outside your office and as you're
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: walking somewhere talk to you.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Is that a very effective way?
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: Please don't.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: What I do want to say is is we have
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: a three hundred and almost four hundred page bill, and
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: I'm sure there's things that we may have not saw
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: all the facts in and when you hit one domino here,
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: it can really mess up some other dominoes.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: I want.
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: I want any American who feels like that there's an
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: unintended consequence of what we're trying to do that we
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: may not be aware of, please let us know.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: And are you ever thinking of running for a state
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: wide office? Would you ever consider running for the Senate
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: or the governorship.
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: I didn't originally plan when I came to Congress that
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: I would be Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee,
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: and I've had such a great honor to do this.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: I just want to make a difference in the lives
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: of the people who have trusted me and sent me
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: to Washington, and so I haven't really planned ahead of
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: anything other than let's pass this one big, beautiful bill.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: You can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen.