AMMAN: Four days before the one-year anniversary of the release of his tax blueprint, House Speaker Paul Ryan delivered a pep talk seeking to assuage growing doubts about the prospects for a major tax overhaul.
“We’re going to stick the landing because we know we’ve got to,” Ryan said in a CNBC interview after an address to manufacturers billed as his first major speech on taxes. “I’m really confident at the end of the day we’re going to agree on how to do this.”
In his speech Tuesday, Ryan steered clear of the controversial border-adjusted tax concept in his tax plan, which he has said would help pay for the steep rate cuts all Republicans want. In his television interview just minutes later, he said the BAT isn’t dead — but congressional tax writers are working on alternative proposals to come up with “the best one we can pass.”
Ryan’s speech urged Republicans not to squander an opportunity to “do something transformational” for the economy and overhaul the tax code permanently. “We need to get this done in 2017,” he said in Washington during an event at the National Association of Manufacturers. “We cannot let this once-in-a-generation moment slip by.”
“Our capacity to come together and to always move forward toward a better, stronger nation is being tested,” he said. “We are going to cut taxes. But if we are going to truly fix our tax code, we have to fix all of it — both for individuals and businesses.”
Ryan didn’t reveal new policy details or a shift in his thinking, which prompted a sharp retort from his Democratic counterpart. “I applaud @SpeakerRyan on his ability to give so many speeches on tax reform without ever sharing details of an actual plan,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said on Twitter.
Prospects for a tax overhaul have “dimmed a lot” in recent months, said Jonathan Traub, a tax specialist with Deloitte Tax LLP and former staff director for Ways and Means Committee Republicans.
