i think that right now majority of senators in both parties want to see it but there is a lot of angst that this step, so in fact completely by what senator reid did when he was majority leader with other executive branch nominations. it will be hard to renege with the filibuster. i think my bet is on the side of it remaining but i don't think it's anywhere near a sure thing. >> steve, over to you.>> please join me in thanking the panel. [applause] >> next discussion has been teed up by both the political and the policy sessions that preceded it. it is one of the most polarizing issues in washington and as well one of the most difficult. that is tax reform.it has been as we heard at last count, over three decades since

elastic comprehensive tax reform. since then, every year the system has been distorted more with tax purposes and so forth. unfortunately, as a result united states tax system has become less competitive on the world stage. without a question how are tax close needs some sort of overhaul. scd just have come out with a bipartisan blueprint which you have or should have in front of you somewhere. on the table. on the recommendation featured in the report leveled the playing field and making american companies more competitive although not adding more to the dead. essentially what was the report written by -- is that if you eliminated all of the tax preferences and leveled the playing field reduce the rates to 20 percent and save revenue vigil. we are pleased to have the moderator, jesus senior writer

cnnmoney where she covers taxes, spending and debt. three little issues that, all of the boring ones she says. and we also have scott wheeler who is the chairman of signal hill. pat mccabe was a partner with templeton and company and mike archibald is subbing and for -- mike is the former ceo of several or many public companies including gnc and talbots. welcome to all. jean taken away. >> thank you very much. thank you so much for coming. i love the name of the panel. we are going to tell you what reform is coming because apparently nobody knows you. we are still working on it and the class is ticking down. will we get anything done this year and was? i will let scott start off and

then we'll go to q&a and then i will turn it over to the audience. >> are we okay? i guess the answer, and i will put a stake out here the answer is yes but not what you would expect. and so, just step back especially in the last couple of panels and think about what we have witnessed so far in washington with the trump administration. we have an isolationist president who has a redline. we have china now is a friend and not a currency manipulator. we have obamacare where people had run for seven years against it and we don't have repeal. and, we do not have a tax plan that anyone wants to go against. i think people have said the borders tax approach and the

planet is doa. so you know kind of progress with client certainty in our life, is also hard to think about what is not only point and i guess that is to sit back and had patients. because if he thought about the previous three or four things, you would not expect any of them. quite frankly, the trump administration seems to be moving.and moving into a more normal zone. kind of a lot of people in this country. so my guess is not comprehensive tax reform as we had talked about. because comprehensive tax reform, just like fixing healthcare and creating a permanent solution, really requires a bipartisan effort. and there is no bipartisan

conversation going on. i am aware of religious tax reform for healthcare. and so i think what you're going to have with donald trump, the probe job guy, he needs to have small victories. and i think what we are going to see is small ball tax reforms with a little r. this year as late as february of next year. the stock market has rallied materially on the expectation of tax reform. and we are going to slip and slide until we actually see something that creates clarity around what kind of businesses and individuals are going to be living with. >> what we have are people with real-world experience working with low companies on the retail side and also

multinational and domestic middle-market companies. they can. >> guest: the issue of what happens if we get nothing. i think -- i want to know what would happen, with the markets tank, what would happen and what is the least amount congress should do?by december? >> thank you. it has the opportunity a couple of times to work through some pretty significant restructuring. driven by tax motivated situations and a couple of companies i was with. they have the ultimate benefit derived and it was to reduce the tax burden of the companies all legitimate. ultimately it ultimately drove a lot of casual sure two. so a lot of the things that we are seeing in the global marketplace with the cash parked offshore a lot of anxiety about what do we do with it? i have experienced.and in fact if we had cash parked

offshore the next thought was now what do we do with all of that cash parked offshore? as much as we would have liked to deploy for deals and acquisitions, the reality is when you have a kind of volume there just are not enough deals to get that done. so i guess the broader answer that i have is that there is some unintended consequences of the ways we have created, tax structures and tax policies in the us. once again were one-time well-intentioned but the consequence is not so good. i think travesty is, if we were to continue down a path of allowing that to happen over and over and over again, i think many have been given attribution for that phrase, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. we i think have to figure out

the point to be able to solve for this. on the global side i would expect the multinational will figure out how to be able to be adopted and overcome and change the dynamics. of what the structures would be if indeed there were some changes that may be moved to a territorial system or - but when you look at the small and medium-size businesses i think gets lost in the conversation because there are some that can lobby for the large companies for the smaller companies, the pastors and partnerships and so forth are lost. that is 50 percent of the gdp for the us. we also need to address that. so the travesty is, the opportunities we are missing every single day in united states is being able to put that cash back to work in the country. being able to deploy even the absence that we have in the small to medium-size businesses. and making sure that those folks that have been so burdened by the, not on the

cost, so you have global companies, the largest of the fortune 500 are probably paying something in the order of 19 percent i think is the right number. for federal income tax.look at the partnerships and the courts are paying 30 percent. then as dating contact and payroll tax and everything else. you have a huge imbalance. i think we need to set that right. i think there's opportunities to be able to make something different happen in the country if we are able to do that. >> well i find interesting because i think everyone would agree that our tax system is overly complex and therefore we should go for simple. and i think it's interesting some of the things like a border adjustment tax where we are going to somehow start taxing imports and calling out that profitability associated with exports.

this is like a perpetual jumper tax accountant going forward. and further increases the level of complexity. so to start with these great intentions of simplifying and trying to eliminate the incentive for businesses moving forward offshore in this is further complexity.it's why i think that the solutions come down to be basically enough dead on arrival at this point. i think it's a really tough road for us to be looking at. but i do think the challenge we have of the complexity that exists in the tax code. it favors large corporations. complexity will favor they prepared. those are the ones who have access to the consultants. there are these people who spend their lives figuring out how to structure the

organizations and how to move money back and forth. all appropriate but is complicated. and the small businesses are do not have the same capability. so i think it's significantly disadvantages the small to medium-size business. in particular the llc.so i think anything that involves tax reform really is to involve both corporate as well as the individuals.>> one of the best things ever heard of the border adjustment tax is the chief economist on the list, when this first came out i said this is so hard. and he said you know the non-economist should not be expected to understand this. and i said well that's good because i don't! and then i will present is a non-economist who relies on his gut. so for him, this is not, he has given us the most tepid of endorsements. and i think endorsement is too

strong of a word. i think it would be dead on arrival but i am wondering if anyone here is that this is salvageable? are there any tweaks that can be made whether it is a transition. intuition goes into effect, if it excludes certain products from the import tax and then secondly, the president wants an importance. so complexity or not, i mean that may be coming down the pipe. we do not know yet what the plan is. so i would love to hear if you think it is salvageable. >> i think as it stands i would say no. i think if you look at you know i spent a lot of fair amount of time and retail space. look at retailers they are really struggling. there is the big bed amazon out there that is into mediating about every retailer and they worry about being intermediated by amazon. and then you have --. i think you will have these

retailers a step up and say not here, not now. and with concern about what will ultimately happen to pressure on pricing, the margins. some of them i get to the consumers as well. so maybe in a form of selective taxation in terms of imports or something of that sort. i just do not see a broad range of an import that i, an adjustment for an export. i don't see how that will work. >> being selected on what is imported on tax. >> i think the challenge or the problem around the border tax and currency adjustments and the rest is, it is neither intuitive nor simple. in terms of message and why we are trying to do it. at the end of the day what it really is about is incremental revenue streams. how do i find the taxes and

revenues to allow me to do something else? the easiest one that is out there that everyone knows that we tend to believe the dollars already spoken for, are there repatriating dollars trapped overseas for an exit fee, some form or another. if everyone has assumed that the deal there is around infrastructure spending, and utilization but let's not get ourselves -- i just think it is a lot higher probability of infrastructure repatriation where attacks repatriation of four dollars is easier than trying to do the border tax. >> so, the border tax i think for it to work, you would need to have a corresponding offset

in the us dollar. the us dollar depending on who you talk to we need to appreciate roughly 20 percent. which magically people believe is going to happen because you're going to create these cheaper exports. therefore all of these companies and countries will be buying dollars and magically drive it up. i firmly believe that the ability to move the most liquid fund exchange market that exists is somewhere between slim and none. without that you will wind up with this being incredibly burdensome on the average individual in the united states. the consumer is going to really take this on the chin. anytime anyone has had me with a bat i know it hurts. this would hurt. >> i hear what everyone is saying. corporate reform, on the individual side for the middle market businesses that are paying the individual code.

if mid april we have heard from how many other things on the legislative agenda not being completed and it is hard to see when they will be or how they will be, what has to happen by december? personally i don't know how you can do comprehensive even business tactical, forget about personal. tell me how this is possible? >> i suspect you got your little bit of this discussion in what means tax reform? i think if you're sitting in companies across the country, tax reform means what is my tax bill going to be? if there is a component of it, the talk is about how complex, how many or how long does it take me or how many people do need to hire and things of that sort. do you thought the postcard when you're done with your individual tax return? i think at the end of the day,

the bigger overall factor here is what is - the companies for pass-throughs, what will they be charged? i think when you look at the consumer sentiment as well as business the small differences have had market increases in terms of overall sentiment. there amazingly kind of, a huge spike postelection for whatever you think of our current president. the small businesses stepped in and said we are enthusiastic. however, they have not stepped up and actually started doing anything terms of employment. you know really dialing out or doing any kind of investment spending. so they are optimistic but it is not with real force behind optimism. i think if we are really expecting to get this economy moving and make america great again, the president is going to have to figure out how he is going to do that.

and he has to get the tax rates and bring semi into some of those businesses. >> you have to offset this with getting rid of taxpayers. that is always the hardest thing. everyone is always happy to cut tax rates but they can never figure how to pay for it. >> dos, i'm not someone who's in washington d.c. but if it occurs to me that it has to get done. and if there is a deficit i would have to, my conservative birds are not showing it at this moment. i think we have to do it and i think will have to figure out how to absorb some of that if we have to. i think we'll have to move it. >> i think the democrat in president trump will remove or not care about the constraint of deficit neutral. and i think all of us are thinking about it naturally because we have been hearing about it. for years. i think that is just one more

negotiable topic. and quite frankly for the growth president, the only way he had a chance of stimulating incrementally the economy before midterm election is having some win for tax reduction for individuals and corporations to be able to say, he got them something. and that will translate into higher economic activity. i don't see how you do without incremental deficits. and i think that is part of the bargain getting donald trump as our president.

how many people would agree to a cap on deduction of all expenses, state and local taxes

and insurance, charitable deductions et cetera ? how many would agree to a cap of $200,000, right now. raise your hands. that's more than 60% of the group. i think that was the trump plan that also may have been a romney plan. whatever it is, people don't hear that or after questions or listen to the content response. truth be told the people that can be the most in taxes will be more than willing if it was right if there was a solution to the problems we have for can't enter an escalation but the deal is will raise your taxes or reduce them but we won't fix the problem and will come back to you later. fundamental tax return reform

will take more than six months and more than his first two years in my opinion. especially, if you try to do on a bipartisan basis. there are plenty of defenses in the market the people would agree to caps to find revenue to be able to offset and do the right thing. >> i don't. >> i don't have the numbers in front of me i know steve mentioned in the gop paper estimates that if you lower the corporate rate to 28% and you get rid of all tax breaks for corporations and pastors because they take ones, that revenue neutral. said that he wants to lower at 50%, originally, we don't have this new plan now.

paul ryan's plan plan was to take 25% and 25%. with 28% be okay? is that enough to satisfy that urge that people are jumping for taxes ? >> we are at 35% today. moving it down down seven points would be a step in the right direction. i think that people would rally around a movement of the sum order of magnitude and that probably fit that litmus test. it shows that washington is immobile and immovable object. if you think about anything, the people i talk to day in and day out, say good grief, is washington ever going to be able to do anything. we've had eight years, certainly, after the aca in the original some of the programs to help fix the finance problems,

but there's been nothing that occurred in washington, nothing. some movement would some port of gratification that would, good grief, why do we elect folks to come to washington and just watch continue to do them nothing. for those in elected office, i would think that nothing else there should be some desire to move the ball forward. often, optimistic about some of the things that i've seen some bipartisan thoughts around small businesses. a couple of items in bills that are floating around about how to address the pastor entities and small to medium-size businesses. maybe there is something that occur occur and it was coming out of florida, some of the legislation being proposed. >> i think of highly performing entities or no that effectively

are being taxed right now at a 50 plus percent and a marginal rate. in terms of income. >> federal and local state. >> federal and local state. obama incremental taxes to that. the point you need to think about is the economy and employment for any of those firms if you eliminated 15 points of their tax. that's not trivial for anyone in the context of employment, growth, investment opportunities. in your case, would it be okay to get the 28% you% you would have thousands of people jumping up and down saying that would be a believe unbelievably positive for the economy. again, is it all at once? is it a hundred%? i doubt it. but their steps and actions you can take incrementally to whittle at this and make demonstrable progress forward.

>> on the political side, but i'm trying to think about the democratic point of view looking at the rhetoric about how we have to cut spending but donald trump wants to have nothing to do with cutting security and medicare. that's the debt dripping spending is the bolt. there is discretionary spending and nondefense which is already 5055 lowest of the gdp. then they say will cut rates to 28%, will not offset it because we didn't talk to joe minarik and we can decide on a. will run with the race. were adding to the deficit. there may be a few other things that president trump wants to add to definite but what point does that become too much? >> you'll know it when you see it. [laughter]

back when we have a crisis and have to do something about it. one of the previous panelist said that it's a crisis that will create actual focus on it. it needs to be a focus. we have a $20 trillion debt problem and we don't have it because we didn't collect enough taxes. so, we have to do something about spending. >> i want to try it a different way. let's go back to infrastructure because it's one of the only topics that republicans and democrats generally agree on other than what the projects actually are and how it should be p4. this is no small issue. the notion that a national reinvestment in a physical infra structure around the country means we have any number of places and metropolitan cities that look and feel like the third world. the notion of doing that on a much more prioritized basis,

quite wrinkly, distributed from one of the major cities will be able to benefit and it's something that resonates, shows progress, it's jobs, employment, and it's going to happen in one form of the other. it's hard to say that you shouldn't deficit spend at two or 3% interest on fifty-year projects or 100 year projects which won't make a big benefit to the economy and you want have had that with normal republican administration because of fiscal constraint. you actually have the opportunity to do something that everyone talked about but i don't understand why were not on that bandwagon. i think it would make a big difference. >> does it matter whether the trillion dollars in federal taxes or public-private partnership that president trump advisors. [inaudible] and then you leverage it for

private investment ? it seems the president has moved back on spending $1 trillion but but it's hard to tell. >> like everything, it will leave all. we'll see where it is the practical issue is there also to projects that be done with better regulatory environment for permitting inaction in building. do people really care whether it's tax credits that are partially used to fund and finances? versus going big and spending more? i think people would rather roll it out and do it in series, do $250 billion now but get going and start doing it as opposed to talking about it. >> that's our advice washington at all times. we'll turn it over to the audience. i know taxes aren't interesting to anyone and you probably don't

have questions but if you do, they're here to answer them. they will pass a mic around. >> thank you for an interesting talk. i'm paula stern, trustee here. thank you for a very interesting discussion. he made a point in responding to scott's point to say, look, we have lobbyists who represent every one of these special favors reflecting special interests. we have a transformative potentially present here and i

am wondering if you think there may be an opportunity for the bipartisan business organization called the ced to speak to just the tax reform or tax/infrastructure issue. i know there is a bipartisan, no label group that has talked about the bargain and i'm just wondering if it's time for us to elevate and communicate once again ced's position. we do not represent any special interests. >> no no no. she wanted to talk now. is it fair to say ced position, not a lobbyist session but it should be revenue neutral?

>> is joe in the room? [laughter] we've taken the point of view that we should try for revenue neutrality simply because when you start to make massive change in the tax structure by definition your moving things around. things like the border adjustment tech sounds great but in essence, dynamic scoring, you not sure you're getting out of it number one but number two you can do certain industries while favoring other industries. get back to the whole point of capitalism. our view as it relates to corporate taxes firm and we haven't taken positions on into a site so speaking for joe minarik which is dangerous to do without a beard, the simplest way is to try to level the playing field and approach the

objectives of what was accomplished in 1986 which was a bipartisan agreement that the provide the structure that lowered rates and ignited both sides would agree was a great growth era. how do you do that today in a different political environment, of course? that's why our policy, the paper that we've just written, eliminate the preferences and lower the rates as far as they would go which would be 28% which puts us into the oecd average rather than over the oecd average. it would show progress in that direction and get some growth growing. to polish, thank you for asking it. this is a role that ced can unique you play but it has to be all of us to play that role, organically and -- as members and friends of ced. >> i see a show of hands, i

assume you are all involved in some of corporations, summer pastors. is that right? if the corporate rates and the top rate for pastors is lowered to 28%, would that work for your businesses? show of hands. once again, i have to squint. i don't see as many hands. that's weird. that because 28 is too high? or you just don't believe in that? >> it should be higher. no. lower. okay. >> so 25%? is that the goal? lawmakers need to know this. there no where near with a need to be demeaning of the finish line. >> you're not the response because your offering us the goodies without the cost. you're asking us what rate we'd like to have at a lower rate but

you're not playing what is the trade-off, what are we giving up by way of closing of loopholes etc. etc. that's why i why i wouldn't raise my hand without hearing the cost. >> you should be a drink believe it should be offset. do you believe tax cuts should be paid for? at least in the large part? okay. that's the majority of the room. >> you're also asking in terms of taxation policy? when i say lower pastor. >> if it goes across all the companies and not just the court there will be support for that. >> any other questions? >> joe kennedy, kennedy research. i'd like to go back to the question. pastors are on a pay one level of taxes. a shareholder would be to. if somebody said talked about the impact of a pastor having

roughly 50% marginal rate, a person would face the same marginal rate if he was working money through a c corporation and paying a separate corporate tax. i think it be a mistake to extend corporate tax reductions to pastors. in fact, if are going to solve the deficit problem by raising any revenue, at some point, will have to raise individual taxes on those who make the most money. i think we endanger tax reform if we try to extend it to the individual. unless were going to cut individual tax preferences and deductions. >> my understanding was that there would be some discussion or evolution of the pass-through that would deal with

distribution. the intent would be you have to have the money retained in the pass-through entities and also some control around the compensation levels so there'd be a reasonable confrontation. if you're the owner, you can give yourself a salary that would be extraordinary and then avoid the true conference. i of your distributions. >> slightly different, but one of the things that concerns me about all of this as a topic area is for the quote populist president or movement. it's hard to understand how you do corporate tax reform and stop there. and not do something with the individual and so, the challenge is how do you bundle those two

things in an efficient, timely way if you can't do a global solution because the clock is ticking. and so, points on the board means that you have to do easier things then the big solution that really fixes all problems, i think. >> again, let me me pull the audience. if congress passes a race because of some time for businesses, corporations and pass-throughs through december but doesn't do any of the hard stuff is that a plus or minus in your book ? who's in favor of that happening at the very least because you've been promised a whole bunch of things and it may not happen this year? that's one person. or do you have a question? two people. everybody else thanks we should do something to offset the rate

cut if are going to do something this year? is that fair? >> as a significant shareholder in one of those pass-through organizations and i spent the last three decades creating more jobs and supporting other enterprises and creating jobs, i would say to you, it would make a dramatic difference in our prospects for hiring an investment almost immediately if that happened. so, while while yes, my pocket would feel differently the playing field would be operating on would change. that would be why i would before that. by the way, pat, i had read that president trump's pass on tax proposal did not have the clause that pass-through shareholders had to have reasonable income. in fact, that that was a concern that everyone would have been a dollar a your contractor.

i'm happy to hear that. that was a concern i had about the proposal. >> we haven't seen the ladle. >> i'm talking about the pre-election. >> yes, but we don't know that will stand. twice he is promised that it would be coming soon. we'll have to wait and see. [applause] thank you jean and the paddle for tackling that small issue. we try to get you something to write about with all the polling but they were reluctant. >> sunday night on "after words". congressman penn buck of colorado, also a a member of the freedom caucus discusses his book, drain the swamp: how washington corruption is worse than you think.

>> when you arrive in dc and you have the surroundings that i described earlier, you get very comfortable in that situation. you don't want to give up those comforts and the way to you to earn those comforts is to spend more money into grow government and to not solve problems but to create programs and take credit for those programs whether they are efficient or effective to take credit for this programs. so, many of the members of congress are here, it's the best job they've ever had, the highest paint job they've ever had and it's a job that they don't want to give up. their reelection is more important than the actual problem solving needs to go on in dc. >> watch "after words" sunday night at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span to book tv.

>> this weekend book tv is live from the 22nd annual los angeles times festival of books. our our two-day coverage start saturday at 1:30 p.m. eastern with a conversation about biographies with blanche we can cook, lee fought, lisa and susan. at three pm a look at the republican party with hugh hewitt, corey field, and peggy and peggy graham. at 5:30 p.m. rebecca solomon, author of the mother of all questions: further reports from the feminist revolution. a live coverage continues at 1:30 p.m. eastern on sunday. the discussion on miriam horn, lee interview and steve early. at four pm gary young talks about his book, another day in the death of america: a chronicle of ten short lights. at 7:00 p.m. david horowitz on his book, big agenda: present's plan to save america. what live coverage of the 22nd annual los angeles times

festival of books saturday and sunday starting at 1:30 p.m. eastern on c-span to book tv. >> next, two doctors to discuss value-based health healthcare and its impact on overall healthcare spending and consumer satisfaction. later, doctor ezekiel emanuel former health advisor during the bombing in this, is hosted by pepperdine university. [applause] >> i often get asked with five pit and for dogs how do you do it? how do you do that job in trouble? quite friendly, the only time i sleep is when i travel. that's how i do it. thank you, gary, for that gracious introduction and for getting us fired up and ready to take on the topic. i am honored to be with you today as the pepperdine grad, i came for the