estimated that the legislation which you re about to vote for would add about $1 trillion to the deficit, even after accounting for projected additional economic growth. so why do you support this? if this is the gravest threat, the national debt, to the country right now, why support something that at a minimum will wind up adding 1 trillion to the debt? first of all, you know, certainly i care about deficit issues. i focused on that in the 11 years that i ve been here and the actual projection from current policy is $500 billion over a $43 trillion ten-year base. so it s about 1.2% off of that projection. well, what happens what happens, senator, if they continue the tax cuts for the middle class, the reductions beyond let s say 2025 when they re supposed to sunset or expire? if it s passed again then that deficit is going to continue to
our congressional correspondent phil mattingly is joining us from capitol hill. phil, it s over one important hurdle, but still not yet a done deal. reporter: no question about it. wolf, think back to the day over the course of one hour, the senate tax proposal went from on the verge of completely stalling out to a clear path to the senate floor and potentially passes. what was the missing ingredient that came into play during that hour? it was the president. if you talk to republican aides and republican leaders, they acknowledge the president coming to capitol hill at times can make them a little wary. that was not the case this time around. coming out of that meeting, you can just track through the republican senators who are on the fence on this proposal. susan collins starting to get very comfortable with the proposal, saying the president gave her commitments on things like health care provisions, including the state and local deduction for property taxes capped at $10,000 into
that s kind of where i land. you ve got flake and corker, they ve got deficit. they ve got deficit issues. collins, she s got let s if we re broad stroking it, health care issues. who s gettable from the personalities that you know or who do you think be who could be the problem here? i suspect they work on folks like johnson who says he wants to vote for the bill. i think the inclusion of the mandate makes it harder for collins and for murkowski and potentially others. also the debt and deficit problems that are very real. i mean you re seeing tax breaks for corporations be permanent and tax cuts for regular folks not so much. this bill raises health care premiums and it s a tough vote for folks. when you look at the impact people are struggling to figure out how and where it lands. that s why you try for someone like johnson knowing the concerns of collins and others may be more endemic. brian, the president is heading up to speak with house republicans. why if he really wants
primary talking point from our friends on the left and if that is true, then this represents the first time in the history of human civilization they ve been concerned about the deficit. so but i m concerned about it genuinely. i m convinced that with a lot of our projections and trajectories here we forget what this is going to do to the economy and how that s going to create productivity and literally as it has in future in past circumstances, in the future, i believe it s going to see a bigger tax revenue for the government and i think that s going to go a long ways towards mitigating any deficit issues. i think it s important to note you don t necessarily support adding obamacare repeal into this bill. no, i do support that. oh, you re okay with it being in. you don t think it s going to happen? i m not predicting it will happen but i would love to see the obamacare repeal go in. the senate rules as we talked about many times make it difficult under this byrd rule. this
political coverage over the weekend to do this without paying for all of this. that is adding to the deficit. what s the right number to add to the deficit in order to do tax cuts? how high are you willing to go in terms of deficit issues? it s a really early question to be asking at this point. the e question is as we construct this on the corporate side and then on the individual side, part of it is going to be an equation that isn t just driven by that, but more by what s going to help us grow the economy. we re potentially growing around 2.6 and the president would like to see that growth right up in the high 3s, 4s and 5s. there s a question about what part of tax reform especially ob on the corporate side will help us spur the economy and grow jobs. that s an ongoing discussion. that s more of the driver of this. as it evolves, we ll have a score and know more. are you comfortable adding to