Ted Cruz explains what he expects from Tax Reform in CNN interview

Ted Cruz spoke with CNN about what he expects to see in the official tax reform legislation that Congress is working on right now:

Here’s more from CNN:

Much like the rest of his party, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is advocating Wednesday for an overhaul to nation’s tax system.

“Let’s simplify the tax code. Let’s let everyone fill out their taxes on a postcard. We spend about 9 billion hours a year wasting time with the IRS. The world would be much, much simpler if you and I and everyone else just filled out a post card,” Cruz said in a wide-ranging interview with CNN’s Dana Bash.

Cruz on Wednesday pitched the simplification of the tax code and is pushing “immediate expensing.”

“What that means is that businesses, farmers, ranchers, if you spend money on a capital investment, you can immediately expense that and deduct it from what you’re paying taxes on,” Cruz said.

But the Texas senator acknowledged that the Republican-held Congress just ultimately needs to pass something — particularly after its failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic legislative achievement also known as Obamacare.

Cruz said a victory will be “whatever can get 50 votes in the Senate.” He added that he would vote for something resembling the tax cuts from the George W. Bush administration.

“That would be improvement from the status quo,” Cruz said. “I hope we do a lot better. I mean, we’ve got an opportunity. If we come in with full expensing, if we simplify the tax code. If we cut the rates, we have an opportunity to see millions of new jobs created to really raise wages. “

You really should watch the clip (it’s short!) if you haven’t yet because there’s more in it than just what CNN reported on.

For example, CNN asks Cruz about Trump having dinner with Dems this evening. Cruz says he talks to Democrats all the time and that’s he’s fine with that. In fact he said he doesn’t even mind Trump hammering out a compromise as long as the end result is more jobs, higher wages, less regulation, less spending and less debt.

While I didn’t post it here, I watched a little of the post-interview on CNN. Bash seems bewildered that a ‘partisan’ like Cruz would be ok with compromise with Democrats. She must not have been paying attention to Cruz when she was following him around last year on the campaign trail.

But you all will remember that Cruz said over and over that he’s okay with compromise as long as it isn’t on principle. He often used Reagan as an example when he would point that out. And that’s basically what Cruz just said in this interview re tax reform.

I don’t know why this is so hard for newsers to understand, but they clearly want to believe this narrative that Cruz is this purist, hardline partisan who would never ever compromise with Democrats in a million years, and that’s simply not true.


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