"It Won't Pass" - Larry Fink, Warren Buffett Blast Trump's Tax Reform Plan

In the week that’s passed since the White House unveiled its tax-reform plan, Republicans and Democrats have expressed their reservations about the proposal, particularly after an analysis from the non-partisan Tax Policy Center suggested that taxes would rise over the coming ten years for most members of the middle class if the proposal were passed into law.

Wall Street, for the most part, has ignored these criticisms and US stocks have continued to climb to ever-higher record highs - even after two industry luminaries joined a growing chorus of skeptics warning that tax reform may not pass by year end.

Both Warren Buffett and Blackrock chief Larry Fink have spoken out against the administration’s proposal, echoing the most trenchant criticism of the bill. Namely, that it’s overly generous toward corporations without doing enough to help the middle class, according to Reuters.

With the White House and top Republicans in Congress already on the defensive over claims the plan would not cut taxes for many middle-class Americans, Buffett and BlackRock Inc Chief Executive Larry Fink suggested in separate interviews that the corporate rate may not have to be cut as deeply as proposed.

“We have a lot of businesses... I don’t think any of them are non-competitive in the world because of the corporate tax rate,” Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc told CNBC.

Meanwhile, Fink, who was rumored to be on Hillary Clinton’s short list of Treasury Secretary candidates, echoed Republican Sen. Bob Corker’s criticisms by admitting that he’s nervous about how the bill would impact the deficit, while adding that if the administration insists on incorporating the elimination of deductions for state and local taxes into the final bill, that the measure would almost certainly fail.  

Fink predicted tax legislation would not pass if it includes a proposal to eliminate a popular deduction for state and local tax payments.

“I don’t believe we’re going to get tax reform if there is the elimination of deductibility of state and local taxes,” he said.

Eliminating the state and local tax deduction would raise about one-quarter of the $4 trillion in revenues that some Republicans say they need to prevent tax cuts from creating a massive increase in the federal budget deficit.

Buffett, who’s a well-known advocate for progressive taxes on the wealthy, said that eliminating the estate tax would be a “terrible mistake” that unnecessarily benefits rich people.

Watch CNBC"s full interview with Warren Buffett from CNBC.

Fortunately for the market, Republican leaders are reportedly backing away from the proposed elimination of the SALT deductions – a measure that would impact some 40 million tax-paying Americans.

But even if Republicans ultimately decide against eliminating the SALT deduction, they will still need to find some other way to pass tax reform without massively blowing out the deficit. To be sure, the administration has maintained that revenue lost from corporate-tax cuts will be partly offset by closing loopholes for special interests.

But no matter what form, or forms, the bill ultimately takes, it’s chances of passing are far from assured. And while stocks have so far (mostly) ignored these nagging doubts, challenges to the market’s sanguine outlook are growing increasingly frequent.

Earlier this week, David Stockman, the Reagan administration"s director of the Office of Management and Budget, told CNBC earlier this week that Wall Street is "delusional" for believing it will even be passed.

And earlier today, Bill Blain posited that deficit hawks like Corker would ultimately kill the reform effort.

In its analysis, the TPC found that by 2027, taxes would rise for roughly one-quarter of taxpayers, including nearly 30 percent of those with incomes between about $50,000 and $150,000 and 60 percent of those making between about $150,000 and $300,000. Meanwhile, 80% of the benefits would accrue to the top 1% of taxpayers.

The market greeted Republicans’ failure to repeal and replace Obamacare as investors quickly retreated back inside their bubble of complacency.

At the time, market strategists reasoned that it’d be easier for the administration and the Republicans’ Congressional leadership to rally support for tax reform. This no longer appears to be true.  

And with the Fed preparing to begin the arduous process of reducing its balance sheet next month, the market is quickly running out of excuses to keep stocks bid. 
 

Welcome To The Hunger Games: Trump's Tax Plan To Unleash Battle Royal Among D.C. Lobbyists

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Are you ready for mass chaos in Washington?

There are lobbyists for just about every cause that you can possibly imagine, and they are always working hard to influence members of Congress on their particular issues.  But when you are talking about a major tax reform bill, that is something that virtually every single lobbyist in the entire city will want to be involved in.  Our tax code is over two million words long, and the regulations are over seven million words long, and any changes to our immensely complex system could have absolutely enormous implications.  There will be winners and there will be losers with any piece of legislation, and lobbyists will zealously fight to defend the turf belonging to their particular clients.  Often lobbyists from different sides will literally be pitted directly against one another, and it won’t be pretty. 

In fact, one analyst that works for Cowen Washington Research Group says that we could soon be watching “the corporate hunger games”…

Almost every industry, special interest, and consumer group has an interest in the tax code, especially if the package ends up being as ambitious as Trump and Republican leaders want it to be. Chris Krueger, an analyst at Cowen Washington Research Group, told Business Insider that the battle over which loopholes to keep and which to throw out could get nasty.

“Welcome tribunes to the corporate hunger games!” Kruger said in an email.

“Only one-sixth of lobbyists were involved with health care (give or take — assuming it is one-sixth of economy). Six-sixths of lobbyists are involved in taxes.”

There is so much at stake, and if the Republicans are able to get something passed it probably won’t look much like the plan that Trump originally proposed.  But it is so important to do something, because today Americans spend more on taxes than they will on food, clothing, and housing combined.  That is morally wrong, and we desperately need tax relief.

Trump’s tax plan would nearly double the standard deduction, and that would be a wonderful thing.  It would provide instant tax relief to working class Americans, and that is something that I would greatly applaud.

Trump’s tax plan would also great reduce the tax rate for corporations.  Our big corporations certainly don’t need the help, but we do want to get our rate more in line with the rest of the planet.  Because our corporate tax rate is one of the highest in the world, it actually encourages companies to set up shop some place else.  Being more competitive with the rest of the world would likely mean more jobs for the American people.

Trump’s tax plan would also reduce the number of tax brackets for individuals.  Instead of seven, now there would just be three tax brackets of 12 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent.  To me, those rates are way too high, but of course I would like to eliminate the individual income tax entirely.

Many are criticizing Trump’s plan for proposing to raise at least a trillion dollars over the next decade by getting rid of the deduction for state and local income taxes.  For those that live in very high tax states such as California, that deduction is a really big deal…

High-income Californians, for instance, pay as much as 13.3 per cent of their income to the state in addition to their federal taxes. New Yorkers can pay up to 8.82 per cent.

Just seven U.S. states have no personal income taxes, including Texas, Florida and Nevada.

Hopefully the Republicans can pass some sort of tax reform in the short-term, because the status quo is definitely not acceptable.

When the income tax was first introduced in 1913, the vast majority of taxpayers were being taxed at a rate of just one percent.  The following comes from Politifact…

The 1913 law imposed a tax of 1 percent on income up to $20,000, for both individual and joint filers. However, exemptions from the tax — the first $3,000 of income for individuals and the first $4,000 for joint filers — meant “virtually all middle-class Americans” were excused from paying, according to W. Elliot Brownlee’s book, Federal Taxation in America.

The law also put in place a graduated surtax on incomes above $20,000; the highest rate paid, 7 percent, applied to Americans making more than $500,000 (about $11.4 million in 2011 dollars).

Today, Americans are being taxed into oblivion.  It has been reported that we spend more than 6 billion hours a year on our taxes, and I once wrote an article detailing 97 different ways that various levels of government extract revenue from all of us.

Every year government just gets bigger and bigger on the federal, state and local levels.  And the bigger government gets, the more oppressive it tends to become.

Personally, I would love to start starving the beast that the left has created, and a great way to do that would be to completely eliminate the federal income tax.

A lot of people could not even imagine a world without a federal income tax.  But the truth is that our country once thrived under such a system.  In fact, the greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history was between 1872 and 1913 when there was no income tax at all.

And we could do it again.  Today, the individual income tax only accounts for about 46 percent of all federal revenue, and if we reduced the federal government to a size that our founders would have wanted, we would be more than okay.

But even if we can’t greatly reduce the size of the federal government in the short-term, we can at least go to a very basic flat tax or a fair tax, and both of those systems would be far superior to what we have today.

If we can’t get a flat tax or a fair tax right now, we should at least try to dramatically reduce tax rates and simplify the tax code as much as humanly possible.

But if we do get a short-term victory, the battle is definitely not over.  In the long-term, we need to be very clear that our goal should be to abolish the income tax, the IRS and the Federal Reserve entirely.  Anything short of that is not good enough.

*  *  *

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Trump Tax Plan To Benefit "Top 1%" Most, Cost $2.4 Trillion, Middle Class To Pay More Taxes

Based on what we already know about the proposed Trump tax reform, which can be summarized as follows:

• collapse the seven individual income tax rates to three (12, 25, and 35 percent),


• increase the standard deduction,


• eliminate personal exemptions,


• increase the child tax credit,


• eliminate most itemized deductions,


• repeal the individual and corporate alternative minimum taxes,


• repeal the estate tax,


• reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 to 20 percent, tax pass-through business income at a top rate of 25 percent,


• allow businesses to fully expense investment in equipment and machinery for at least five years,


• adopt a territorial tax system that would exempt the foreign earnings of US corporations from US tax

... moments ago the Tax Policy Center released its analysis of what the practical impacts of the Trump tax plan will be on the broader population. Below we present the key findings.

The tax plan will cost $2.4 trillion over the first decade and $3.2 trillion over the second dacade, on a static basis

• The proposal would reduce federal revenues by $2.4 trillion over the first ten years and $3.2 in the second decade. This means that absent a matched deduction in spending, US deficit and debt will increase by a similar amount. This is a problem as a Senate GOP budget resolution unveiled on Friday only allows for adding $1.5 trillion to the debt, implying a revenue shortfall of just under $1 trillion.
  
  • The business income tax provisions—including those affecting corporations and pass-through businesses—would reduce revenues by $2.6 trillion over the first ten years. Elimination of estate and gift taxes would lose another $240 billion. The individual income tax provisions (excluding those related to business income) would increase revenues by about $470 billion over the same period.
  
  

While many Americans will benefit, the biggest gains will go to the 1%, whose after-tax income would increase by over 8%.

• In 2018, the average tax bill for all income groups would decline: taxpayers in the bottom 95 percent of the income distribution would see average after-tax incomes increase between 0.5 and 1.2%. However, and where the Democrats will have a field day, taxpayers in the top 1 percent (incomes above $730,000), would receive about 50 percent of the total tax benefit; their after-tax income would increase an average of 8.5 percent.

• Between 2018 and 2027, the average tax cut as a share of after-tax income would fall for all income groups other than the top 1 percent. In 2027, taxpayers between the 80th and 95th percentiles of income (between about $150,000 and $300,000) would experience a slight tax increase on average.

The problem is that at the same time, taxes for substantial portion of taxpayers will go up:

• In 2018, about 12% of taxpayers would face a tax increase of roughly $1,800 on average. Where it gets worse is that many of those who form the backbone of the upper-middle class, or more than a third of taxpayers making between about $150,000 and $300,000, will pay more, mainly because most itemized deductions would be repealed.

Fast forward to 2027, when the overall average tax cut would be smaller than in 2018, increasing after-tax incomes 1.7 percent. Taxpayer groups in the bottom 80 percent of the income distribution—those making less than about $150,000—would receive average tax cuts of 0.5 percent or less of after-tax income. However, taxpayers making between about $150,000 and $300,000 would on average pay about $800 more in taxes than under current law. And the one item which Democrats will love: about 80% of the total benefit would accrue to taxpayers in the top 1 percent, whose after-tax income would increase 8.7 percent.

It gets worse: by 2027, taxes would rise for roughly one-quarter of taxpayers, including nearly 30 percent of those with incomes between about $50,000 and $150,000 and 60 percent of those making between about $150,000 and $300,000.

According to the Tax Policy Center, the number of taxpayers with a tax increase rises over time. This is because the plan would replace personal exemptions, which are indexed for inflation, with additional credits for children and non-child dependents that are not indexed for inflation. In addition, indexing tax brackets and other parameters to the slower-growing chained Consumer Price Index means that over time more income is subject to tax at higher rates.

Finally, there is of course, the repeal of the state and local tax deduction, a move which is expected to be widely hated by homeowners across the US, but as the chart below shows, by democrat states far more than republican states.

As BofA writes, blue states with high state and local taxes will be the most adversely impacted from the loss of this deduction. Thus, opposition in the Senate will mainly come from Democrats, while Republicans will mostly be on the same page. But, the situation should be more contentious in the House. Data from the Tax Policy Center reveals that 26 of the top 50 districts in terms of SALT deduction usage had a Republican representative. Republicans will likely face more internal pushback from these members. Ultimately, a House bill would fail if two dozen Republicans (and every Democrat) were opposed.

More in the full report below (link):

Stocks Sink After Trump Tax Plan Leak - Here's What Wall Street Thinks

US equity markets ran up overnight but appeared to hit a "sell the news" moment as President Trump"s tax plan was leaked.

For now, it seems like the takeaway is that Trump wants Corporate/Small Business cuts at all costs and is willing to stick it to rich people with "at least as progressive" actions, if that"s what it takes to get the cuts. As Wall Street analysts generally agree for now, the devil is very much in the details... and those are yet to come.

Via Bloomberg,

COWEN (Chris Krueger)

• Offers initial takeaways: "The low bar was met" but the devil’s in the details, with no explicitly detailed offsets and no revenue/deficit number


• Creates way more questions than answers although progress has been made as 9 pages tops the 5-paragraph precis released earlier this year


• No revenue number makes the rest "almost an academic exercise"; highlights there was nothing on Obamacare taxes or capital gains, no Roth-ification, bank tax or border adjustment


• Still believes nothing will pass on taxes this year or next

GOLDMAN (Jan Hatzius)

• Prior to release, had written that proposal seemed likely to reduce revenues by ~$4t over 10 years; by contrast, debate in Congress has ranged from revenue-neutral tax reform to recent proposal allowing for $1.5t tax cut over 10 years


• Sees proposal as having to be scaled substantially to fit within fiscal constraints Congress is likely to impose


• Even so, tax reform is "finally starting to move," recent developments suggest rising probability tax legislation will be enacted by early 2018

KBW (Brian Gardner)

• Reminds investors outline was expected to be more of a wish list than a final document; tax rates in plan are subject to change, may rise once Congress actually writes legislation; sees corporate rate as likely to be higher than 20%


• Had expected most of details of other tax policy issues (deductions, exemptions, etc.) would be left out, since policymakers didn’t want to give interest groups targets to shoot at this early in the process

BMO (Aaron Kohli, Ian Lyngen)

• Prior to release, had "plenty of open questions," including the Senate reaction, whether there’s enough support within GOP rank- and-file to push reforms through in the House, and how cuts will be accounted for in offsetting revenue


• Expects debate on eliminating state/local tax deductions; also worries proposal is simply a "more exacting" version of Trump’s tax reform wish list; "it’s always folly to presume that precision implies accuracy and we fear that’s what the markets are currently trading"


• BMO on board with notion that a sizable cut will boost inflation over the next few years; not as certain anything more than minor cut will pass

HEIGHT SECURITIES (Stefanie Miller)

• Suggests investors "take a step back and evaluate" why Big Six are releasing tax framework; the blueprint’s purpose isn’t to set final policy details, but rather to advance the process and give Freedom Caucus Members cover


• Also provides tax writers opportunity to offer opening salvo ahead of more serious negotiations down the road


• No matter what’s in the blueprint, still puts 75% odds on Congress passing measure that cuts corporate rate to at least 25%

Trump Individual Tax Plan To Have 3 Brackets: 35%, 25%, & 10%

As the minutes tick by ahead of the announcement of "the greatest tax cut in human history," we are getting more information on the personal tax rates (something Treasury Secretary Mnuchin failed to mention earlier). As Fox News reports, in addition to raising deductions, the Trump administration will collapse the current seven-tier bracket system into just three tax brackets under the new plan, taxed at rates of 35 percent, 25 percent and 10 percent.

As Fox News reports, President Donald Trump’s tax plan, which will be unveiled Wednesday, calls for a sizable increase to the standard deduction Americans can take when filing taxes, potentially allowing taxpayers to keep more of their income – to the tune of a couple thousand dollars, White House sources told Fox News.

A piece of the proposed tax overhaul would nearly double the standard deductions that both individuals and families can claim on their returns, Fox News reported. Under the proposal, the tax cuts for individuals and married couples filing separately will increase from $6,300 to $12,600. The standard deduction for a married couple filing jointly will jump from $12,700 to approximately $24,000.

White House sources also said the plan would eliminate the marriage penalty.

In addition to raising deductions, the Trump administration will collapse the current seven-tier bracket system into just three tax brackets under the new plan, taxed at rates of 35 percent, 25 percent and 10 percent... this is slighlty different than Trump’s previously proposed tax rates were 33 percent, 25 percent and 12 percent.

We look forward to hearing from Mnuchin and Cohn in an hour on the details... and of course any guesstimate at whether this will pass.

Trump's Tax Reform Plan: A Cheatsheet Of What Is Known, Leaked, And Is Still Unknown

On Wednesday, the President will reveal a "broad-stroke" vision on his tax reform plan. Coutest of Citi and various media sources, here is a detailed cheatsheet of what is known, what remains unknown and what has been leaked.

All the latest: Tax reform, shutdown, protectionism & Fed buzz

• To keep the Administration tax reform priorities live amid Congressional budget shutdown aversion negotiations, President Trump has signaled the release of a preview of the pending June OMB budget, this Wednesday. That means tax reform details.


• There is no set time for President Trump’s announcement. Spicer did not commit to timing during the daily White House briefing but there’s been a chorus of warnings:
  
  • Spicer said: “And so we will continue to engage in that discussion and outside stakeholders to try to get a plan really put together and details laid out in the next several weeks once we make the announcement tomorrow.”
  
  
  • Mulvaney says budget with detailed scoring still is projected for release in June, but the White House will focus upon “principles, ideas, and [tax] rates” for Wednesday.
  
  
  • Senate Majority Lead Mitch McConnell has provided similar sentiments, saying that reform rumors “not worth anything at this point.” He favors treating all businesses “similarly” when it comes to tax reform and says it’s clear Congress will need to use a reconciliation vehicle for tax reform.
  
  
  • “We will be disappointed on Wednesday when we see that this is the big announcement,” one lobbyist told Politico. “They should not be building this up for a big nothing burger.”
  
  


• Remember, US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin is slated to discuss tax reform initiatives as a part of The Hill’s Newsmaker Series on Wednesday from 8:00 EDT to 9:35 EDT. The Hill previews this event saying that he will be interviewed, “about the administration’s priorities and timeline for tax reform.” See the announcement here, which also notes: “After the interview with the Treasury secretary, tax and budget experts will participate in a panel discussion about the prospects for tax reform.


• On Tuesday, the market saw the following leak. Note that most of this is no different from the vision Trump has communicated before:
  
  • WSJ says Trump’s plan intends to extend the 15% corporate tax rate to pass-through businesses, which while a standing part of Trump’s vision, an important detail.
  
  
  • WSJ also claims White House officials also are considering proposing a territorial tax system, the people said. In such a system, US corporations would pay little or no tax on future foreign earnings.” Read more here.
  
  
  • Politico has published an article detailing what is currently expected of the Trump tax plans. It claims:
    
    • Marquee policy ideas are expected to include infrastructure spending and a childcare tax credit. Infrastructure looks to be linked to corporate repatriation.
    
    
    • Not likely to include the border adjustment tax (BAT), which House Speaker Paul Ryan hoped would generate USD1.2bn in revenues to fund other aspects of reform. NYT followed in late NY backing this with reports, which also suggest that BAT–lite is out the picture as well.
    
    
    • Expected to tout a corporate rate of 15% (as noted other places); and not expected to include details on ways to offset new spending, or deep tax cuts.”
    
    
  
  
  • Senate Majority Lead Mitch McConnell has lifted spirts by saying he’s hopeful well get a spending agreement in the next few days; doesn’t want to talk about a short-term CR yet.
  
  


• Late on Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that repatriation of corporate foreign earnings will be taxed at 10% in President Trump’s tax plan, according to a White House official.


• CNBC reports that Trump"s tax reform plan may include a placeholder for border tax, citing an official.


• Trump’s tax proposal doesn’t call for repealing the corporate alternative minimum tax, as Trump’s campaign plan stated


• There have been no major leaks regarding how defense will fit in the big picture but note these are important aspects of the conversation. Citi Economics expects the plan to up spending in these areas at the expense of nondefense.


• There have also been no major leaks (outside of the childcare tax credit) regarding personal income tax changes. Trump, before, has been a proponent of:
  
  • Alleviating taxes for Americans making less than 50k
  
  
  • Simplifying the American tax code into four brackets – 33%, 35% and 12% - down from seven brackets ranging 10% to 39.6%, while also eliminating the marriage penalty and Alternative Minimum Tax.
  
  
  • Eliminating the death tax
  
  


• As Mnuchin has emphasized in recent days, the reform plan is based on the idea of dynamic scoring.  Dynamic analysis accounts for the macroeconomic impacts of tax, spending, and regulatory policy, while dynamic scoring uses dynamic analysis in estimating the budgetary impact of proposed policy changes. Ultimately, the Trump Administration believes its policies will generate growth above 3.0%YoY, which can pay for the plan. The challenge is that it has to sell this view to Congress.


• McConnell is aiming for a long-term government bill and sees it clear that Congress will need to use a reconciliation vehicle for tax reform. This point is very important but to illustrate this, one has to understand the reconciliation process.
  
  • The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities helps define it. Created by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, reconciliation allows for expedited consideration of certain tax, spending, and debt limit legislation. In the Senate, reconciliation bills are approved with a simple majority of 51. To start the reconciliation process, the House and Senate must agree on a budget resolution that includes “reconciliation directives” for specified committees in the House and Senate. Those committees must report legislation by a certain date that does one or more of the following:
    
    • Increases or decreases spending (outlays) by specified amounts over a specified time;
    
    
    • Increases or decreases revenues by specified amounts over a specified time; or
    
    
    • Raises or lowers the public debt limit by a specified amount. 
    
    
  
  


• Republicans could pursue tax reform under the budget reconciliation process, meaning the Senate would pass bills related to the budget – but reconciliation requires a bill to reduce the deficit over the long-term.Post 10y, scoring has to indicate that the bill will be revenue neutral or revenue positive or it doesn’t work.  


• That looks to be exactly why Republicans wanted to prioritize healthcare reform: the Congressional Budget Office estimated the American Health Care Act would reduce federal deficits by USD337 billion over the next 10y. Given that tax reform estimates signal a revenue burden, various political analysts posit that Republicans have been looking to repeal Obamacare to pay for some parts of tax reform.


• Without healthcare reform, Republicans could face challenges getting a revenue neutral, long-term tax reform.
  
  • The Tax Policy Center estimates that Trump"s plan for a 15% corporate tax rate would decrease federal revenues by USD2.3tn between 2016 and 2026. Trump"s campaign tax plan for corporations and individuals could cause revenue to drop by roughly USD6tn between 2016 and 2026, according to the projections.
  
  
  • The Tax Policy Center is left-leaning but is being heard out. Even Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch has said a 15% corporate tax would increase the deficit and if the overall plan doesn’t include border adjustment tax – or borrow funds via healthcare reform – Republicans will haveto find revenue streams.
  
  

Trump Tax Plan Latest: Lobbyists Fear "Big Nothing Burger"

The buzz is beginning to build around Trump"s tax plan and what Americans can expect (and perhaps more notably, should not expect) to hear tomorrow.

After seemingly punting on the Border Wall funding, Citi notes that Politico has published an article detailing what is currently expected of the Trump tax plan:

What"s In...

"Marquee policy ideas are expected to include infrastructure spending and a childcare tax credit"

"Expected to tout a corporate rate of 15%"

What"s Out...

"Not likely to include the border adjustment tax… The border adjustability provision is crucial to the House Republican plan, and Trump’s opposition would force tax writers back to the drawing board because they were counting on it to generate revenue to fund other tax cuts."

"Not expected to include details on ways to offset new spending, or deep tax cuts - though, internally, the White House remains divided as to how much it should address the deficit in tax reform."

In addition to this, Citi points out that House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady has just published a fresh interview on his website exposing some details. Most notably positive was on the corporate tax rate, Brady said:

"I think we can get close to 15 or certainly at 20, and which makes us very, very competitive worldwide."

Brady did not mention the border adjustment tax in this interview. Remember, Brady is still scheduled to meet with Trump, Mnuchin, Cohn, Ryan, McConnell and Hatch to discuss the tax plan today. The timing was never provided.

Finally, one lobbyist talking to Politico, seemed to sum things up rather well...

"We will be disappointed on Wednesday when we see that this is the big announcement... They should not be building this up for a big nothing burger."