Later, Charles Johnson on the cost of combating isis. We take your calls and you can join the conversation at facebook and twitter. Washington journal is next. Host good morning. It is monday, august 7 and the wall street journal reports congressional applicants republicans plan to use the next they hopeom republicans will heal divisions that open when the partys Signature Health care bill collapsed. We want to get your take on the possibility for tax reform or at least tax cuts or something in the area of taxes. What is your message to taxington, congress on reform . Here are the numbers to call. 2027488000 if your income is less than 30,000 a year. If you make between 30,000 and 50,000, your number is 2027488001. If you make over 50,000 a year, 2027488002. We have added a fourth wind is money for Business Owners, your take, your concerns, your desires only area of tax reform. Is your number. If not by phone, you can weigh in at social media. Is our twitter handle and you can post a comment at http twitter. Com cspanwj. Keep the heat on the gop. They go on to write that at home in their districts, members of congress base pressures that can make it hard to focus on taxes. Many constituents and Party Activists blame congress more than President Donald Trump for the health care stalemate and are pressing them to find a resolution and before they can do anything, lawmakers face time sensitive fiscal business hashing out a budget, funding of federal government, and raising the debt limit. They result is a party sent home for a monthlong recess to face mixed messages from voters and an uncertain path forward in the fall. People are not met at the president , they are mad at the Republican Party by not working with the president to get things done. This is from republican mike kelly. He says he hears complaints while doing errands at walmart. Tax headline focuses on the , a major town hall a major message of discussion. Here is President Trump from last week in West Virginia making his push for tax reform. [video clip] to be a prosperous nation, it is also critical that we lower the crushing tax burden on our workers and on our businesses. [applause] the United States has the highest tax rate on business anywhere in the world and we want to bring it down to one of the lowest because we want more growth, more jobs, and higher pay and that is what is going to happen. [applause] importantly, we also want to let their ownkeep more of money, not take it from them. [applause] cut forme to pass a tax middleclass families. Host at the same time, we caught this piece in vanity fair the headline says republicans still have no idea what the white house is doing on tax reform. We will read a little bit. They write still reeling from the health care disaster, the recent health care vote, republicans scurrying back to more comfortable territory, cutting taxes. We have our vote and are moving on to tax reform, said ohnson the Trump Administration has clear tax reform leaving republicans in the dark and at the risk of repeating the same mistakes that killed obamacare repeal. That is in vanity fair. Message toon your congress and the white house on tax reform. Monique is our first caller from here in the District Attorney over 50,000 a year. Caller thank you for cspan. I wanted to say that d. C. Has some of the highest taxes in the world, but people are literally flooding to my city. I dont mind paying an additional two cents for education or an additional five cents to make sure my streets are clean or an additional . 21 for the roads, you know . Also, i dont think that millionaires or billionaires should get a tax reduction to purchase a milliondollar home on the back of someone like myself that makes over 50,000. I dont get earned income or anything of that nature. I think money should come back to people in a situation like myself when i file my taxes, i dont get a lot of money back and i just think they need to think about the people who are actually working to build america as opposed to those who already have the millions and billions of dollars. Host thank you for calling. Fremont, the line from california. You are earning less than 30,000 a year. What is your meshes message on taxes . Caller i think we need to heed President Trumps call and cut taxes across the board for every american. I dont know if he is going to win reelection 2020, but i have to say i am also can can find re confined to a wheelchair. I think he is trying to do the best job he possibly can for everybody across the board. Even though i earn less than 30,000 a year, i think we have to cut taxes for everybody across the board and strengthen our borders and keep the country safe from terrorists. Host thank you for calling. The reserve center has put out a poll, a sampling of opinion on taxes and they headline their piece by saying top frustrations with the tax system. The wealthy does not pay their fair share. The majority of americans view the tax system as unfair. Partisans differ in their concerns about taxes with democrats far more likely than republicans to express frustrations of some that some corporations and wealthy people do not pay their fair share. Among the public overall, 62 are bothered a lot. Bothered a lot by the feeling that some corporations do not fair pay their fair share of taxes. 60 say the same about wealthy people not say paying their fair share. Perhaps we will hear reaction thisyou to that calling in money. David in arkansas makes between 30,000 and 50,000 a year. Good morning. Caller hello. I am really sick and tired of the democrats. With the democrats in our country, we would be like venezuela. We pay the highest in the world and people dont realize human corporations. Se not only do they pay highest taxes, the highest in the world and then they pay dividends to the shareholders and they pay taxes. Its double taxation and when they die, they pay taxes again, triple taxation. Host what would you be looking for from congress, then . Caller also the stop the stuff about the rich dont pay a next and off. They pay 92 of our taxes. That is just a theory the democrats have had. If the rich paid 99 of the taxes, they would say they were not taxed enough. We need an across the board tax cut on everybody and we are not going to be able to get really what we want because democrats want to tax everybody to death. We need to get the lowest tax rate we possibly can, hopefully corporations 15 , but because the democrats are socialists, probably will end up around the teens or 20s unfortunately because what happens when we lower the tax cut for corporations tax rate for corporations as they come back in. Corporations would start coming back in in droves to america and then when we let them repatriate their money they will bring trillions of dollars back in. That is what they need to do. They need to lower the tax rate , fill out our tax and if wea postcard do it the way the administration wants to do it or close thereto host ok, david. Joshua is in maryland earns less than more than fort relies on theody government to fix everything including the tax code and i think people need to pay their fair share. You hear all the time about people wanting to take exemptions for this and that like people cannot even give to charity without wanting an exemption. I think we need to do our part before we ask the government to overhaul things. Definitely things to be changed and we need more efficient improvements to the code, that we need to think about paying our taxes first. Host david writes that trickledown does not work and it never has. Tax the rich and corporations fairly. Neil writes donald is a billionaire that can only afford visa holders. Tracy writes before any vote is taken, explain how the middleclass working poor and allamerican employees will benefit and not just the usual trickledown. We are happy to pay taxes if they are being used appropriately. Dont cut for the sake of cutting. Lets bring down our debt. Paul earns less than 30,000. Good morning. Caller thank you particular my call. I agree with the caller from arkansas a little bit ago. One of the Things Congress could for corporations and also figure out a way to let repatriatedll this money back into the country. They have maybe billions and trillions overseas and if they bring that money into this , whaty at a fair rate would that do to our economy . It would really improve our economy a tremendous amount. They want to get the gdp that would help a long wait do that. Along way to do that it needs to be in this country, not overseas. Host thank you for calling. Fred writes the power to tax is the power to destroy. Smaller government means fewer taxes. Shrink the size of government. James is calling now on the line for taxes he makes between 30,000 and 50,000 a year. James from georgia, what is your message to congress . Caller good morning. Thank you for cspan. I was just wondering how people and the rich people supposedly pay less, but when poor people i am wondering what the difference between a poor person not paying any and on the food stamp lying on a food stamp application to get more of month and a rich person having millions and not paying any. They are all stealing from the government. Host lets hear from crist. Fort washington, maryland are earning more than 50,000 a year. Lets try again. Chris, are you there . Caller i am here. Thank you for taking my call. First of all, i dont think there is any fortune 500 up any paying an actual 35 tax rate because of the tax code. The tax code is the size of an old yellow phone book four inches think. There is no way any corporation is paying an actual 35 . If there was a flat tax rate and everybody had to pay that, 5 or 10 or whatever it is and there would be no way you could get around that, i would be fine with that. Host ok. Thank you. Your message to congress on tax reform. Thomas is calling from new york. Earns less than 30,000 a year. Caller how are you . Good morning. Host doing fine, good morning. Caller caller unfortunately, theres a lot of poor people in the u. S. As you know. Trump and the administration doesnt care about anyone. In government they think about the poor people. We have no good road in our area. Poor people in the u. S. Every day by day they become more and and they show us the government doesnt care about them and only want to pay money to kill innocent people in yemen and iraq and afghanistan. Host be specific. Caller the washington Tribune Chicago Tribune writes something that is very unusual, trump there is an theyollection that shows why do25 million we have this big gap in the u. S. . Why do we have this big gap in our country . Host questions from thomas. We have a Business Owner from Fairfax Virginia on the line. Caller thank you for cspan. Host give us your perspective on all of this. What kind of business you own, what kind of employees, what is your tax situation . What do you want from washington at this point . Caller i have a business in the advertising agency. Ourve met with our cpa and tax advisors and we are currently at the 35 tax rate. If we were lowered to a competitive rate to other countries, if you go to ireland, italy, some of the other ones that are at the 15 50 20 marginal tax rate, that would give us enough right there and moreto at least have two full timers on staff, possibly three. That is a small impact for a business like myself, but just in Northern Virginia alone there my size orcompanies larger if you multiply that by that, you eliminated all the problems with any unemployment in this area and i daresay you would start to do it in other regions of the country depending on the affected rate of the tax increase. Host thank you for calling and we have other Business Owners to call in. The vanity fair piece about republicans and what they are looking at when they see the white house in this tax area, when donald trump unexpectedly won the oval office, they wrote the gop was given the greatest opportunity in 30 years to rewrite the tax code. 6 months in, it remains as the Health Care Debate was roiling and capitol hill, the socalled big 6, paul ryan, kevin brady, gary cohen, steven mnuchin, hatchmcconnell, and orrin released a 6 paragraph statement that lacked any real policy minutia. A few vague paragraphs with a Broad Strokes proposal. Its more like fingerpainting. This literally started as principles yesterday and worked into they are talking there about the republican tax plan and some democratic viewpoints on it. Nealis congressman richard from our newsmakers programs which ran over the weekend. Democrat on ways and means and writes the tax policy talking about the prospects in congress. [video clip] i think there is broad agreement that there is 2. 8 trillion offshore. Some of that is intangible assets that will not be brought back, but theres an awful lot of money that can be brought back for more Productive Services hopefully for infrastructure, for example. I think theres also on the democratic side a your earning to address the issue of the skills gap across america today. Thatlion Technology Jobs go unanswered. In new england we have between 16000 and 20,000 Precision Manufacturing jobs going unanswered. Acknowledgeeed to how we can align Economic Growth with Job Opportunities because certainly there are opportunities that exist with members of the american family. Hereo think the difficulty is going to be, kevin has already met with democrats on the committee and it was an instructive meeting, anything but harsh. Revenue neutrality, prescribed number of dollars around in the current system. Where i think there will be brought this agreement is his suggestion that he will not adhere to distribution of neutrality and i think that is where the resistance will come in on the democratic side. People at the top of the American Economic ladder, they are not pining for tax cuts. They were not pining for them at 201 or 203. I think that many of them are suggesting that if you are going to transform the tax system, lets do it in an equitable way where it improves the quality of life for all members of the american family. Host you can go to our website, www. Cspan. Org, to watch this newsmakers segment and any others in recent months. Go to our website, www. Cspan. Org. Calling from canton, North Carolina. What is your message regarding taxes . Taxes, i really agree with the guy from arkansas a whole lot. Cspan, ive got a question for you. Host yep. Run a when have you ever segment on how the government spends our tax revenue . We come to find out after eight years of democratic control that higher taxes just wont work. Barack obama when barack obama got reelected in 2012 and saidlicans john boehner we will give you your tax increases on the 1 and the last four years of Barack Obamas tenure, the government took in more tax revenue than it has in in history. Our roads are terrible, health care is terrible, our education is some of the worst in the world. I mean the way democrats run things, it almost looks like we could be venezuela any day. Donald trump is trying to work the people. I can see somebody took less money and had more productivity than any Government Official i have ever seen. When you hear a democrat say that all they want is tax increases for the rich, that is just codewords for that politician needs more money. When Maxine Waters can live in a 4. 3 million house as a civil servant, something is wrong in this country. Host thank you for calling from canton and thank you for putting somethingto us we should be doing as much as possible to help educate ourselves and folks out there. We have thomas writing at twitter about taxes and he says the disbursement of tax money should be fair. There should not be donor and receiver states. We have john on the line earning more than 50,000 a year. Caller i just wanted to call in some hard truths about tax levels in the usa compared to. Ther countries it tax revenue and the percentage of gdp in the u. S. Is around 20 . The usa is trying to compete with them in terms of infrastructure and training. The previous caller had a question about where the tax money is going. There simply isnt enough. If you want to be an advanced country with advanced infrastructure and services, youve got to tax more of that is just the hard truth. Host thank you for calling. Robert is a Business Owner in waldorf, maryland, not too far out side d. C. What is your situation . Caller my business in the state wemaryland is being taxed are also being taxed we have a flush tax. Your last caller says we need to be taxed more. Is that not the craziest thing you have ever heard in your life . How can you could how can you be taxed for flushing the toilet. You need to go back where you come from. The one thing youve got to understand here. If the Republican Party really wanted to cut taxes, they wouldve done something with obamacare, but the Republican Party has run the biggest con job on the American People for the last seven years. They have raised aliens and millions of dollars saying we are going to repeal obamacare millions and millions of dollars saying we are going to repeal obamacare and all they are going to do is stand in Donald Trumps way, undermine him every chance they get. They have no intention of cutting taxes and its an absolute con for anybody to sit here today and think they are going to paris to this is nonsense. Going to. This is nonsense. Host what kind of business do you run . Caller i am a dental technician. Host what would a taxcut mean to your business . Toler they would allow me make more profit. More money in my pocket for me to spend. Host would you be hiring more folks with that money . Caller no, i would make more profit to go in my pocket. I go to work every day just like you do to make a dollar. Would you like to make more today or pay more