Scalise on Hannity: 'Every income bracket does better under our bill'

WASHINGTON, D.C.—House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined The Sean Hannity Show this afternoon to discuss the House's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that cuts taxes for the average American middle-class family by $2,598, creates more jobs, and provides tax relief to individuals in every income bracket.

Click here or on the image above to hear the full interview.

"Every income bracket does better under our bill. Somebody making $30,000 a year is going to do really well under this bill, somebody making $30 million [a year] is going to also do well because we cut taxes across the board. Even if you look at the 39.6% rate, people will be paying that percentage on less of their income because we move more of their income into the lower brackets, especially the 25% rate, and the 12% rate. So just think about this: the first $90,000 of your income will be taxed at 12% now, which is an incredibly low rate for most families and the first $24,000 we double for the personal exemption, so the standard deduction. The first $24,000 is not going to be taxed, and everybody across the board gets a tax cut."

"On the corporate side, as you mentioned, in our bill in the House—Kevin Brady just passed it out of his Committee— [has a] 20% tax rate down from 35%, the highest in the industrialized world. That’s immediate, we wanted to make it immediate because we want to get that economic impact and bring jobs back to America. We do that. Something else we do, we completely repeal the death tax, Sean. It phases out, so each year we decrease the amount that is affected by the death tax until it finally and completely goes away."

"The bulk of these cuts are immediate. For families, your lower income tax brackets, those are immediate. The corporate tax cuts, those are immediate. You’re going to get a lot of benefit there, but also if you look at the phase-out, part of that is done because look, we had targets we had to hit. You don’t want to increase the deficit, this is going to bring in a lot of new economic activity…It’s going to work really well. From the estimates we’re getting in already, you’re seeing reports that average families will get over $2,500 more in their pockets. You’re going to see wage growth—which we haven’t seen in a long time, Sean, because the economy was going so slow because of the bad Obama policies and the crazy regulations. Of course, President Trump has finally reversed a lot of that, you’re seeing slow increase now in economic growth."

"If you look at what we’re doing, number one, there are rules that say you can’t cut taxes more than 1.5 trillion dollars…because of budget reconciliation. You need to make sure that the bill can actually get to President Trump’s desk, so you can cut 1.5 trillion in taxes, which we do. If you look at where we focused, President Trump really wanted to focus this on middle-class tax relief. So that’s what we did. Everybody’s going to get a tax cut. Millionaires still will have less of their income taxed, so everybody’s going to benefit from this. We repeal the alternative minimum tax, by the way, something else that hits a lot of upper-middle income folks in a very unfair way. That goes away under this bill.

"When you look at the whole thing, and you’ll be able—there’s going to be a calculator coming out real soon where you’re going to be able to look at your personal situation, and I think you’re going to find, most people will see they’re going to pay less under this plan. And you’re going to get economic growth. I’m sick and tired of seeing companies move jobs overseas just because our tax rate is so high. Those jobs will now start coming back."