Jack Lew: Tax Reform ‘Has To Be Paid for with Revenue,’ Not ‘by Cutting Spending’

‘It would be a good thing if we could do revenue neutral tax reform that lowers the rates by cutting loopholes and paying for it’

EXCERPT:

LEW: “First, let’s start with the core principle. It would be a good thing if we could do revenue neutral tax reform that lowers the rates by cutting loopholes and paying for it. How you do it really matters. There’s a big difference between tax reform and tax cuts. Tax cuts just add to the deficit, it would create a burden that would be a real economic burden, and because it matters how you pay for it, if you were to do it by cutting programs that go to the most vulnerable, that would be a terrible outcome. That’s not real tax reform so I have kind of four principles that I think of as kind of the guardrails that should be used right now. First, everything that’s done has to at least maintain the progressivity of the current system. It can’t make it worse, it should make it better. Second, it has to be paid for. By being paid for, it has to be paid for with revenue. It’s not good enough to do it by cutting spending." 

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