A counselor to the president and the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference told a gathering of minority entrepreneurs that the GOP tax reform plan would have “real people impact” and ease the burden on employers, enabling them to create up to 2 million jobs.
Republicans in Congress are focusing on passing comprehensive tax reform legislation after their efforts to repeal Obamacare failed.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., chairwoman of the House GOP conference, is embarking on what’s being billed as a tax tour of several states—including Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Michigan—to hear from middle-class families and explain why tax reform is important.
Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to President Donald Trump, praised the “Faces of Tax Reform” as a great idea at the Wednesday gathering.
“This is about real people impact,” she said at the Oct. 25 conference at the Capitol. “These aren’t numbers on a page, or campaign promises to check off.”
Conway said Trump has had his economic team focus on “middle-class tax cuts” and reducing “the burden on our job creators.” For corporate tax rates of job creators, she said, Trump wants the current 35 percent rate reduced to between 15 percent and 20 percent, so employers can invest in more employees and inventory.
“I want to tell you that the White House and Congress stand united in championing tax relief,” she said. “We believe that this will unleash the potential of all businesses.”
Conway said the Trump administration hears from business owners regularly, and they ask the government to “get out of the way” and for better international trade agreements. She said it’s the government’s duty “to create the right conditions for businesses.”
Conway noted that she was a small business owner for 22 years herself, and as such, she knows the tax and regulatory burdens that small business owners face.
McMorris Rodgers, the fourth-highest ranking Republican member of the House as chairwoman of the party conference, said she views her job as to “create opportunities” and improve lives.
“We have an opportunity to fundamentally change the course that we’re on, and I think that’s why you’re here,” she said to the entrepreneurs.
“It’s an opportunity to increase our standard of living, increase the opportunity that we have as Americans,” McMorris Rodgers added. “It really starts by enacting permanent tax reform so that we have more jobs, fair taxes, and bigger paychecks.”
McMorris Rodgers, now in her seventh term, said the United States hasn’t seen substantial tax reform since President Ronald Reagan was in office in the 1980s and noted that Americans will “spend more on taxes than [on] food, clothing, and housing combined” this year.
“I represent a district in eastern Washington where there’s a lot of just good, hardworking Americans that are doing their part, paying the bills, meeting the mortgages, but yet they feel like they’re falling behind,” McMorris Rodgers said. “So, we want to take them from feeling like they’re stuck to where they can earn more and that they can dream bigger dreams.”
She estimated that the current Republican tax reform plan would create more than 2 million jobs.
Kenya Pierce, co-president and chief operating officer of Voulez Beauté, a cosmetics chain, said the business that she runs with her husband has suffered because of high taxes. She was born and raised in Brazil, but she moved to America because she wanted to raise a family and grow a business here.
Voulez Beauté has a few stores open already, and Pierce wants to build the chain into 260 stores over the next decade. She said she recently hired 15 employees and is in the process of hiring 15 more, but she wants to pay them more, too.
“We can’t pay as much … because I have to make business work,” Pierce said. “So, these people, they are entitled to have a better paycheck. It broke my heart when I made my first payroll, and you know how much I had to take away from them.”
She said to make ends meet, her business will not be making a profit for at least five years.
Other speakers at the event were Jovita Carranza, treasurer of the United States and former deputy administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration; Raynard Jackson, founder and chairman of Black Americans for a Better Future; Robert Wallace, president and chief executive officer of Bithenergy; and Gerald Boyd Jr., chief executive officer of DB Consulting Group.
