Pricewaterhousecoopers and the former chairman of the house ways and means committee, and the center on budget and policy priority, president of the committee for responsible federal budget, and grover norquist, president and founder of the americans for tax reform. Over to you. Thanks. Lets start with you. What was your reaction to the secretarys comments . Were you heartened . We wrote a story about the possibility of transportation mixing with tax reform. A big step forward. A very important division. If you put Infrastructure Spending, any spending, inside lesss o tax reform, that is for infrastructure. It reduces what you can do. Two separate it is helpful. To separate it is very helpful for as far as the debt, it has been reported that the adjustment tax is not going to be one of the offsets. Are you concerned about this being this blowing a hole in the nations debt. Thank you for asking the question about offsets and the debt. I am a here supporter of tax reform. We need tax reform as a way to grow the economy and increase competitiveness and lowering the tax rate is an important piece of that. There has been no talk of what the offsets are. This is on the giveaway side. But the purpose of tax reform is to grow the economy. Is way you grow the economy to bring rates down. He also grow the economy by having an improved allocation of capital, which comes from broadening the base. We can pay for this by bringing rates down. That will help growth. The third thing that will help the growth is dont balloon our near record level of national debt. If they are focusing on growth, and i think that is the purpose, you want a plan that is paid for. We have seen time and time again that tax reforms that are paid for grow the economy more than those that are not. What i do not want to see is this tax reform is going to be paid for by magic. Garrett, as far as bipartisanship, do you see it in tax reform. Perhaps, but this is just tax cuts. They should not be conflated with tax reform. My vision of tax reform is when we recognize that revenue neutrality, which is what i suggested, will not come anywhere close to that, is inadequately low. If you look at demographics alone, we are going to need more revenue, not less. If you think about our challenges, whether they are environmental or geopolitical, we will need more revenue. What i call tax reform is not what secretary minutia and was describing secretary mnuchin is describing by a long shot. Tax reforms should not be dis equalizing. It should not follow the mnuchin rule, where you dont see tax cuts for the wealthy. Every single plan we have seen goes far in the other direction. This is not tax reform. This is regressive tax cuts that will exacerbate our fiscal challenges. Dave camp, you have dealt with this issue. You hav ese scars to prove it. What advice would you give the Trump Administration . Heard thiswhat we morning is absolutely critical. The administration is fully engaged at the highest levels on this issue and they are coordinating as much as possible with the leadership that are interested in advocating for tax reform. As you go through this process, certainly with all the people, data, and resources the administration has, they can help to get through the ups and in thehat are process as big as this. It is natural they are trying to do it this year. I think it is welcome news for an opportunity for success. I did not have that kind of engagement from the administration, or frankly from congressional leadership at the time. I think this is a big game changer in terms of the chance of having it become a reality. Do you see this being a big difference in how health care was handled . The illustration did not put forward its own plan. There have been a number of plans and ideas on tax reform of members of both parties over the last decade. There is a broad consensus that our tax code is broken and we need to do something about it. P is not enoughd growth to absorb those young people trying to enter the workforce. There are common themes, and when you get into details it is much harder, but that is very different. The Health Care Issue has been a polarizing issue for many, many years. Tax, obviously there are disagreements in how to approach it, but there are ideas there that are not quite as partisan as in other areas of policy. Health care, there has been that the Freedom Caucus is striking a deal with the administration and leadership. How important is it to Good Health Care done first . Extremely important and President Trump has said that, as well as the congressional leadership. The reasoning for it is obamacare was 19 taxes with a stethoscope stapled on top of it. 19 taxes were 1 trillion over a decade. If you are going to get to a progrowth policy, if you go at 3 a year for a decade instead of 2 you get 2. 5 trillion more revenue coming in, it is a huge pay for. Is much better than taking money out of the economy elsewhere. If you can take 1 trillion off the table to start, that is the 1 trillion from Obamacare Tax increases, which is matched by more than 1. 2 trillion in spending over a decade that increases in the out years, that is paid for. That is a 1 trillion tax cut every decade, out into infinity, fully paid for, offset by spending cuts, not tax increases, but spending restraints. Then, you move over and you are 1 trillion closer to your statue of what tax reforms would look like. So, thats why its extremely important as a first step. If you skip that, it is a mess. But the path to getting it done, if you are able to flip Freedom Caucus members, it could get to the house, but the senate will be difficult too, isnt it . This has been pretty negotiated with the senate early on. There is a section for stuff the senate wants in the bill. So, this has been worked with the senate and the governors as well. The Obamacare Repeal is also the reform of medicaid. While granting medicaid to the 50 states. Having 50 states do what they did with welfare reform, you learn what works and what does not. With onesizefitsall, you dont know what works and does not work in medicaid. It is a reform of medicaid. As well as a repeal major reform of obamacare, plus a 1 trillion tax cut. When ryan and the president told the Freedom Caucus, go in a room and come back when you can count to 218, that wasnt in porton, rather than having each one whisper into ryan or trumps ear, they got tired of that. Locked outnot have of that room without the level of support they needed. Speaking of the Freedom Caucus, there are a lot of members that want to they have debt built and want to cap the debt. Do you think the President Trump could change his mind . To you think it is possibly may be something he would do in the second term, if he wins . All indications are that he sticks to things he said during the campaign. He said he was not going to make changes to Social Security and medicare. The problem with those promises, along with the other promises he has put out, plus the existing fiscal situation, is the numbers do not add up. The thing that is most likely to change his mind is if you go through the fsical situation we are at right now, the debt is at the highest level in the economy it has been since we came out of world war ii, before he does any policies, we are on track to add another 10 trillion to the debt over the decade. That will be his 10 trillion. That is something he was very critical of president obama for overseeing. He will own that. He now has a little policies on his list, two spending increases. You cant do that. You cannot cut taxes, increase spending, and take the most critical part of the budget to reform off the table. So, i think the really important thing here is, you are talking about sequencing between health care and tax reform. The very first step in this process has to be the budget proposal. The budget the administration put out dealt with 1 3 of the budget for one year. To me will come out with the full budget. The question is, how will you have those numbers Work Together . What we know from republicans, in the house in particular from the past, they have been set on balancing the budget in 10 y ears. You cannot get the balance of you have big tax cuts and take off entitlements, without going of growth. The reason we wont have sustained 3 growth we should shoot for but we have a different labor market situation we have had in the past. There are no credible estimates of all those policies that could get us up to 3 in a sustained way. What i dont want to see is us plugging in am birs Economic Growth numbers that wont get us there. What i want to see is a whole comprehensive plan to grow the economy. That will include bringing our debt down and that is going to include entitlement reform which we cant walk away from. Bob congressman camp, how do you think tax reform should move through the house . You know the politics of the Freedom Caucus and difficulties that health care presented. How do you think they are going to go about it . You mentioned the trump is onboard. Leaderships onboard. Which wasnt the case when you pursued tax reform. Do you think this is going easier or harder than health care . Congressman camp i think its very different than when i first got to congress which is there is a great deference to what the committees and what chairman, what leadership are trying to do. Thats not the case now. Its going to have to be more transparent than people were used to years ago. And engaging member by member. You have to really involve the conference in a large, broad way. I met with many members individually when i was there. 30plus hearings. There is a base of knowledge. An active legislative affairs team can be helpful on these issues. There are a lot of new members as well. I think there has to be a real engagement. This is where actually having a very active White House Legislative Affairs team can be very helpful on these kinds of issues. All players on the field can make a big difference. Very open, transparent, and i think trying to build that consensus, and i think it can be done. Bob do you see the path as usually the house is moves a bill along party lines but that perhaps the senate would be more bipartisan and then they would come in conference . Orrin hatch, the finance committee chairman, wants to do some type of bipartisan bill. Mitch mcconnell probably said it will have to be republican votes only. Congressman camp the house has been sort of taking that mode for quite a while. I still think its important in the house to talk with democrats. I know chairman brady is doing that, to get their ideas and thoughts. They are seeing where the pressure points are. I would expect there will be discussions with democrats. I dont know whether the House Democratic leadership will allow any democrats to vote for the bill. But at least they you want to at least have them a part of the process. I know they have begun some of those discussions. Jared i think for anything to even approach bipartisanship, the tax cuts will have to move closer to something close to at least what i think democrats think of as tax reform. And that involves, again, revenue neutrality is probably too low a bar if you listen to some of what maya said on the fiscal accounts. Any tax plan that makes the mnuchin rule will be at least should be unacceptable to democrats. I believe will be unacceptable to most. On growth i just have to amply mayas point because its so essential. You heard the secretary. Hes i have a lot of respect for the work hes trying to do. But you heard him say the tax cut will pay for itself. That is patently false. The tax cut wont pay for itself because no tax cut has ever come anywhere close to paying for itself. Thats not the same thing as saying the tax cuts can never have any growth impacts. But the growth impacts they have, which by the way are uncertain, i can show you evidence of tax cuts that were negative in terms of growth, they are de minimis, they are a couple tenths of a percent at best. And often not sustained. We should really inject a very firm dose of reality into this discussion and wholly discount what i call dynamic scoring abuse. The idea you can you called it magic before. The idea you can make up stories about how what i think is a very large regressive tax cut will pay for itself. Lets agree we can stop pretending on that point. Congressman camp i think you can have dynamic scoring and growing the economy and getting above 2 as opposed to below is huge. It is very important to do that. And what i think it really depends on how you put the package together. And you are obviously able to do tax reform in such a way that the economy grows. And frankly what americans are worried about is that the American Dream is not for them. Because we have had sort of flat growth and flat median income. If you can get tax policy that moves that forward do we have to stick with the static score . Jared to pay for itself. Can a tax cut pay for itself . Congressman camp depends how you jared it can . Congressman camp depends how you approach it. I think you can get tax policy jared 2003 tax cut was supposed to drop taxes down to 12. 9 trillion over the next five years instead went up to 13. 3. It raised money from what they said it was going to cost. We cut taxes and the government had more money over that period than they projected without the tax cut. Bob thats the one tax cut that we had recently. Most recently tax cut we had and it completely paid for itself. The idea it never happens is silly. If you look at the reagan years we went from 2 growth for 4 growth for quite some period of time. That was a function of the spending. The revenue went up. You just said revenue then shifted jared tax cuts do not pay for themselves. Congressman camp if you can also use it for policy issues that maybe democrats might care about or both parties care about, like infrastructure or other kinds of spending. It doesnt have to necessarily be limited to tax policy. Maya i love a good fight about dynamic scoring. Dynamic scoring clearly has real merit in terms there are policies that have more effects on growth than others. Its useful to making sure bob what do you think potential growth is . Maya what will grow the economy. It will not find the tax cuts will pay for themselves. Tax reform will increase growth by will pay for a fraction. Maybe 20 of a tax cut. It will increase it by Percentage Points not decimals of Percentage Points not full Percentage Points. You want to use dynamic scoring to guide us toward progrowth policies. Just showing that the economy did one thing at the same time you had tax cuts, a correlation is not some kind of academic model that shows they pay for themselves. They dont. Grover first of all, 2003, tax cut what people said was going to happen, what did, on revenue. Your earlier question was on bipartisanship. When clinton raised taxes it was just with democrats, house and senate. When obama raised taxes it was democrats, house and senate. When the republicans are now looking to reduce taxes, its very understandable, the modern Democratic Party, there is no member of the house and senate that wont vote for a tax increase and you cant find anyone that will vote for net tax cut. You heard the explanation people on the left dont want tax reduction they want shifting around but not reduction. On the republican side theres no republican who wont vote for a tax cut and they cant find one since 1990 when bush found some who were willing to vote for a tax increase. That has largely ended up. So of all the issues before the country, taxes are the one that is most divide on a partisan basis. Were not a country where the democrats live south of the masondixon line and the republicans live north. Were now on two sides of the tax fight and so looking for devotes for the tax full is a fools errant. We should always be open to that. Im in favor of getting all the votes possible for the largest tax cut. I would love to have democrat votes for that. I dont any. Bob not even the democrats up for reelection . Grover no the pressure is on them. It is conceivable one or two. If you could you get one or two. To get to 60. After you have already got the votes, could you see one or two might vote that way. I tend to think the pressures from the left are so strong that that wont happen. Maya on bipartisanship, it is congressman camp is right, that dynamic scoring can show you where the growth is on the tax side and the spending side. There is so much talk about could you pray bring together tax reform which will grow the economy and infrastructure, which will grow the economy . Bob mnuchin said no. Maya there are a lot of different players and ideas. There is potential that Something Like that will come together. That could be progrowth but im going to go back to the point if its paid for. Because the devils bargain here is unpaid for tax reform with unpaid for infrastructure, we can increase the debt by twice as much instead of going back to alt findings that tax reform and Infrastructure Spending grow the economy more when they are paid for. I think, grover things the biggest fight in the country is between taxes. I think its people who are willing to make hard choices and people who are willing who want to sell you can have something for nothing. Bob as far as the state of the Democratic Party, a devastating election for democrats in november. Why would the democrats want to give President Trump any type of victory . Especially when were having special elections, already talk of the mid terms. Where do you see or do you think that President Trump has been reaching out to them so the tone has been set . Jared i think the problem for democrats is the gap between Donald Trumps rhetoric in the campaign and the extent to which he tried to appeal are very successfully appeal to working class people who have been left behind and the policies that hes been espousing that we heard about on the stage today is huge and growing. I find it very, very challenging other than a couple of photoops, to point to a trump policy that says this is going to help the working class. I really dont believe grovers democrat r