president trump hosting a national hispanic month event at the white house this afternoon along with first lady melania trump. we will have live coverage starting in about ten minutes before we had to the widest the with the glue to some of the issues surrounding the 2018 federal budget colluding discussed in congress. >> president of the committee for a responsible federal budget. join us after the house passed its 2018 budget resolution. explain where the budget goes from here and why this is important to the republican taxi from effort trying to it is very important to the taxi from effort. passing a budget is also very important for running a country and it should be noted to anybody that we're passing the budget now after the country system has already begun. this is way,gu way late in the process. i think that speaks to the problem that so often we these budget deadlines. that said, if you want to use

and people who this more than they want to but the term reconciliation. reconciliation is a process that allows the senate to pass something with 50 votes, 51 votes instead of safety. expedite, easy to get things done. in order to have reconciliation you have to pass a budget. months late house house and the are passing their various budgets. include reconciliation instructions though they're different, and the next it is going to be a both passive and then have to reconcile the meaning they come up with one budget. that budget will lay out how much you are allowed to either save through tax reform or in this case probably add to the debt through tax reform in the reconciliation t instructions. right now the house that is passed their budget has revenue neutral tax reform. it also requires $200 billion in savings and on paper it would get to balance. the senate budget is quite different. it doesn't reach balance. it's something republicans that

said they wanted to do for long time but their budget has such big gaps in the taxidermist because it allows $1.5 trillion in revenue loss for tax reform which would mean tax cuts, not taxi four. that means they can't get to a balanced budget, and it has come of all the spin in the next ten years the republican budget is asking for 1 billion in, savings which i pointnt out because it's up piddling amount compared to what republicans said they want to explain. >> host: explain the timing with the tax reform efforts already underway but can did not vote until this reconciliation process happens and when is that going to be? >> guest: that's right. they are developing the frameworks of the details of a taxi for. we've been seeing that in bits and pieces getting a sense of what the tax reform bill would look like but they will not be able to move it forward legislatively and take a vote until a budget is done. i think the budget would get done in the next couple of weeks. they have to work out the

differences between house and the senate and during that time people are still working on tax reform and filling in the details attest to get out both internally in congress and with the public to see what you like and don't like and refining it. takeltimate vote will not place until the budget resolution has been passed. >> host: a reminder, seems like a long time ago that the details of this tax t plan released her it was just last week. for our viewers the key provisions of the republican tax plan, it would collapse seven individual income tax rates to three, a 12%, 25% and 35% rate and 35% rate. increase the standard deduction, increase the child tax credit, repeal the estate tax can , rede the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%, tax passive business income at a top rate of 25%, doctor territorial taxes to pick that's sort of the big picture, the key items on this tax reform plan. is this something your group is aborting? >> guest: we are sort isfr

aborting taxan reform. is this something were supporting? we don't know what this is yet so we're all waiting for the details and the details will make huge difference. from our perspective, care very much about fiscal responsibility and growing economy. from our perspective taxi from what you think of something that proves nobody can agree the country needs. there are very few people would say this tax code is perfect, don't touch it, i love the way it is. it is currently complicated. since a way of the growing economy. makes is not as competitive global globally as it could be. the distinction will be the differences will be when they fill in the details. what will be looking for and i think this is really important point about tax reform, but does this make the debtdo worse? one of the goals of tax reform is help grow the economy and help bring our near record levels of national debt down back to more traditional levels. if this adds to the debt instead

of makes the d debt better, we would certainly not be supporting it. >> host: i want to get into more details but want to invite our viewers to join the conversations. as folks are calling in and to follow-up on that, i release from last week you study the broad outlines of this plan. the big fix tax from could cost $2.2 trillion with a release that you guys put out just after this plan was released. what are the big drivers of that in this plan? >> guest: athe problem with the tax of them so far is the latest detangling the goodies, the goodies are recorded catcher tax rate, double the standard deduction, the credits are going to be larger, the corporate tax rate is going to come down. those all the things that will lose revenue. there are also the things potential to grow the economy if and it's a big if they are paid for. one of the things we found in

outside studies is taxi from the makes the deficit worse is much worse foror economic growth in taxi from the makes the deficit better or at least is paid for. if your goal is to grow the economy you want to offset the costs. the problem and it'san understandable because politically nobody's willing to talk about hard think cmo and that's a big frustration because fiscal responsibility and falls paying for things but politically nobody has said howt they will pay for this. when we look at basic numbers -- >> host: all i would be paid for through higher economic growth over -- >> guest: to put it mildly the numbers are talked about are nonsense. people are putting out growth estimates that are pulled from the sky. we would all like to have massive amounts of growth part of the purpose of tax or is you grow the economy but if you look at all the past taxi from everton what we've seen from how much different tax reforms are likely to growow the economy the numbers that are being tossed around in the political

discussion are multiples of what's realistic. that's because people are unwilling to say what we would do to offset the cost. i should simplify this. tax reform, tax cuts do not pay for themselves. if they are smart they do grow the economy but in order to pay for themselves, a tax cut of one dollar would have to generate five to six times of economic growth. that's not going to happen. i would hope we can do to make this tax on the best can be is to remove -- move into the room of reality think about what is reasonable growth and build that into what we talked about. >> host: grover norquist was on this program last week, a supporter of this legislation. he was one persons making the point some of these costs could be paid for through larger economic growth over the next decade. here's what we had to say when we talk to them about your estimate about the cost of the republican tax . >> what analysis out there from the bipartisan committee for a responsible federal budget said

its initial analysis of this plan showed the plan would add 2.2 trillion the deficit over the next decade. >> first of all when we talk about the cost of the bill that really tells you what a politician or group that callsls itself bipartisan leans left. talks about the cost. when we have our taxes cut, most americans view that as a pay increase. it's not a cost. there are people based in washington, d.c. who think all of my should come in here and if they don't get as much money as they were expecting, it's a cost. they are friends of government, we use a tory term, the friends of government, the tories, the people who supported the british againstod america. when taxes are reduced, it's a cost. no, it's not. it's a pay increase for the american people. >> host: maya t macguineas? >> guest: first he sit our group leans left it if you ask the left whether we left i promise you that that what the

think. we are really nonpartisan bipartisan group i'm an independent. grover makes this point it's because we love government. i think the thing about fiscal responsibly is it has nothing to do with the size of government. you can be a big government fiscal responsible person or small government fiscally responsible person. it means being willing to pay things today rather than shifting the bill to our children. i think that is a principle we should be able to agree on a palm is oftentimes fiscal responsibility issues as defense. one party starts to talksp about it to keep the other party from enacting the legislation they pursue. in terms of grover norquist i would say it's a weakness in his approach to all of this which is always been he's asked for a big pledge no new taxes. if what youol want is small government and lower taxes, you don't get that by cutting taxes. you get that by cutting spending. we are group that is open and supportive of cutting spending. unfortunately one of the things we haven't heard much at all in this budget process or these

resolutions. but if grover really wanted what he says he wants, he would put out a pledge that said no new spending. his group doesn't do that and the problem is we continue to the government that spends more and more and so you don't want to pay the bills in fact, you want to pay for few things and again that just means anybody whoer supports that has been willing to say to the kids this is why we are passing on tense the turned up those the debt you because we had a lot of things we did and we were not willing to pay for them. cutting taxes makes it even worse. to clarify again we desperately need tax reform. costs byffset those getting rid of $1.5 trillion in tax loopholes a year that this country has, by other revenue sources or by cutting spending. but if we do it by adding to the debt that's going on my that fae purpose of taxable. >> host: the committee for a responsible federal budget easy to find online. maya macguineas, the president of that organization here with us for about the next 20 minutes taking your calls.

shelley is in florida. the line for republicans. you are up first. >> caller: good morning. thank you so much. my it isn't very good person this morning. i want use thank c-span for the markup. i was watching all day yesterday for the budget. on the budget committee i understand that as grover norquist used the holster you did. speaking about what he said about people live in washington, i thought he lived in washington and is constantly on the television speaking as she set about no new taxes. and yet somehow he is there in d.c. trying to lobby for things. i think maya represents a long-standing kind of reality conversation as she stated. as republicans have always spoke about not increasing the debt,

we now saw from the budget markup yesterday all of the senators on the republican side, that was lucasha strange, that perdue man, that was lindsey graham, the chair, all of those are men. they primarily are from southern states he received defense budget expenditures in terms of the economy without that kind of defense authorization which they also are, in fact, increasing in spending. you speak about the fact that spending is, in fact, where we need to create the clarity for a real discussion. could you speak to us about how it is, the first question, if, in fact, this budget that they are creating, will that, in fact, be passed without i guess in reconciliation? the other question --

>> host: let's handle that question first. >> guest: thanks a lot for watching the budget market because it's always been its near and dear to my heart to know that people wantea to thos. they are incredibly interesting pick you learn a lot about the different members and depositions on fiscal issues when they going to the process on the budget. i have to say i agree with you i have been reallyha quite surprid how many, and again republicans and democrats have different viewsre of government and to thk they are totally legitimate but it's the lackk of consistency i think it's difficult understand. right now what i'm seeing is lot of folks who have worried about the deficit and debthe for a log time instead they want to fix it to spending a mandatory reform. now they have the majority and they are passing a budget that doesn't do anything to control spending on thesp senate side. and does make the debt worse because it allows so much lost revenue and tax reform without offsetting those cosby if you

want at $1.50 in lost revenue and you want a smaller government, , $1.5 trillion in spending is complete the possibility. i've been to sardis it quickly people have stopped worrying about the real fiscal situation and what you think will happen is that the senate budget as it is will be something the house has to decide what is going to take it in that format or it's going to stick with a format that is has which is revenue neutral tax reform and 200 vento spending cuts cuts. from a physical perspective that makes and needs since and it will be interesting to see other work of the the differences between the two because the one thing is they all want to get tax reform done. i share that goal but as i can repeat over and over the hard choices necessary to do it right are difficult. politicians don't love making them but how do we broaden the tax code get getting rid of a f those loopholes, and to be frank those loopholes are things we love. >> host: what i want what you're loopholes you would

recommend? >> guest: the one they're discussing on individual site is a state and local deduction. this is a way where lower tax stays are subsidizing howard tae statement if you live in high tax state and you pay state and local taxes you are not having to payt federal taxes on that. state and local members of the state that no state local taxes are not getting the same tax rate. it's a subsidy to the well-off states. i don't think that makes sense. by the same token on home mortgage interest deduction in kobe popular. i know and when you sitting in the house that it is starting to get nervous but we don't need to subsidize mortgages up to a full $1 million. it is very sort of against the actual policy of trying to get home ownership, country people into homes forof the first timeo making sure the subsidies go of the people with 1 million-dollar mortgages or vacation homes. we could scale the back to we could look at the way we don't tax healthcare cost the same as wages forx healthcare insurers the same asas wages it's called the healthcare exclusion.

-cso what people on the right ad left have talked about. the widow bring the cost of healthcare down. i would like to see us look at all of these tax breaks and consider which ones we can get rid of and this budget is willing to of we can bring the rates there to accommodate that. >> host: to mississippi, curtis is waiting. line of the democrats. go ahead. >> caller: first of all, i bet she's a wonderful woman and i don't understand her position but she needsds to be much, much higher. the way she is explaining these, it doesn't matter if democrats orwo republican. see one thing and expect to get results from another thing. raising up anything or cutting this and that issues can make the economy worse, you know? and make common sense. it basically make common sense. i really like you maya and hope you keep the good work out. >> guest: thank you. that's really nice call. can you pick t up on economic growth? you were talking about economic

growth.nk i do think growing the economy is one of the biggest objectives that we have in this country. we have had some real challengd the biggest challenge is we're getting older. we are in the society aging and that means more and more people moving into retirement. the way we grow the economy it was more labor or more capital investments and productivity growth. when your labor is shrinking or more and more people are retiring, that takes a real hit on economic growth. low economic growth affects all of us. it affects the standard of living, our wages as we want to get that up. i would argue what this country needs tos do is put in place a cover his economic growth plan. that's going to have a lot of things that both can agree we should do. they will there restrung a degree at how to do it but at least they should agree we need to do it. those things judging on the congressional budget office and others that put at estimates would include o tax reform can't

figure out how to age more productively so people are aging you can move into retirement more gradually. putting place a debt deal bringing our debt down. spending more of her might the to write make sense that were not invest enough in publicic investments, infrastructure, education, lifelong education i would argue, worker training. there are things wee should be doing that would slowly bump up our growth a little bit bit by bit. i wish there were way with both parties could come up with what of the best things we can do to grow the economy and then let's hash of the details of how to put them in place and work together, i know that doesn't seem very doable right now in washington but worked together on an economic growth plan for the country. and i would add important where the gains from growth are shared equally. wonder the things we've been seeing is the gains in concert at the top, and i'm talking about figuring out how to ensure that when we grow the economy that translates into higher wages for workers and are shared

probably. >> host: bill, go ahead. >> caller: goodrs morning. to suggestions. the first suggestion would be we should do away with the income tax and have a national sales tax, and if we did that you could help the poor people by saying there's no sales tax on use merchandise. the rich people would pay a bigger share because they would spend more money. the middle class would pay their share because they would spend the money that they earn. you are doing away with taxing our people, i mean taxing the rich people more money thatt you have to do that. just tax them on what they spend and you have all this argue his back and forth, loopholes, any of that. my second comment is with regard to the national debt. we could start a national lottery took out off the national debt and at either one, two or three winners every day.

in my mind i feel people come out at $59 a day that the federal government would make, and that the cities of country make. if you gave out $50 million a day to the people of this country, could you imagine how that would grow the economy,, people might start businesses, my property, other things? and they would pay sales tax on thatld money. >> host: thanks for the suggestion. maya? >> guest: two big ideas. i'll take the person. on the sales tax as a form of consumption tax, i tend to agree to taxinking of ways consumption rather than income would be good for the economy. pro-growth. i've always liked on the cold the progressive consumption tax which is a tax on consumption. you don't tax what you say, they measure sales tax but it has some progressive rates. your tax would r be higher the more that you spend which would mean it would so the progressive, the distribution to be similar to what we have today. the question really is how much

can congress by all. the tax upon the talk about is significant, a lot of improvement structurally and we'll see if they're able to get it then. something even bigger like what you a talk about with a consumption tax, i b also am interested in a carbon tax which could help the energy and five and raven at the same time. those big changes but are not in the cards for the immediate future butut i bet we'll talk me and more about the incoming is because the matter will be in with tax bill, it's unlikely it's consistent with a plan that's big enough to address our national debt and will have to come back to tax of four. on your other idea, i applaud anybody is thinking big about how to pay down the debt. i thought a social ideas i will do that because with big ideas on the debt. i keep thinking if we had a national goal for balancing the budget by a certain year, or probably the better one would be getting the debt as a sharp economy down to certain love.

right now it is 77% of gdp. that is twice what it is been a struggle in this country. we need to bring it down. what if we turn with the goal of guinea to 60% bring it down? if when we hit that goal we think take the additional tax revenue that was going to start to be bigger surpluses and given back to people in dividends, kind of an american dividend plan, it's a little gimmicky but i think we need something to get the whole country to rally around we have this goal, we want to get the debt under control. so i like your kind of thing but how we're going to do that. >> host: michael, california, independent. go ahead. >> caller: good morning, john and maya macguineas. the wall street, the 1%, is a very tricky subject. because the bottom end of the 1% these people who are like doctors, brain surgeons,

whatever, whatever. the .0001% aree the rich. so i these tax reforms going to only affect the .0001%? thank you, ma'am try to quick question. i wish had the answer. those are the details that are not filled in yet. there's lot of talk about raising, increasing the top income tax bracket for the very well off. what we don't know is what any of these different brackets with facing. we don't know who that would address. your point is a good one because the wealth consolidation and income gains that con recently have just been to the top 1%. they have been but even more so to the small fraction and that one percenter your right to point that out. it is hard to get tax policy that is targeted to making a few hundred people pay more in taxes so obvious it is doable but i think there is a more unified

since then has been between the two parties thatee tax reform isn't about helping people at the top. i'm sure they are very different distributional goals but but it create aple looking to tax reform where the richest people get to get tax break. i think the richest people in this country would probably recognize they don't need tax breaks right now. i might be wrong on that. it it's how hard to craft something that pulls a a 1% vers fraction of 1%. we will see. it's a good question and which is to have enough details on how the different tax brackets or is there any certain taxes would be included, how the will be allocated. >> host: a few minutes left with the maya macguineas. -mills new york line for republicans. good morning, deborah. >> caller: i would like to speak to the point of unrealistic expectations for growth. i think there is a residual

memory from 2000-2008 when individuals were able to get credit very easily, and because of that they were able to spend large amounts of money on consumer debt and on consumer products, and it was a boon for the building industry. but as we all know we got herself into a lot of trouble by making it easy to get too much money without enough responsibility. thank you. >> caller:hi rate calls this morning. really we have seen that so many ways an economy that we kind of have been bubble hopping. a lot of what is given used economy for a long time has been a variety of bubbles, whether it was a stock market bubble, tech bubble, housing bubble, a consumer debt and credit bubble. what we want to do is create more of a sustained growth

situation than popping from onea bubble to the next because there is risk thatt bubble will pop in the question is how we will do with that. i worry we have a government our public many ways that economy -- the goal here is not to feel the con as much by consumption as it is by investment. that's what a lot of things we want to thinknk about to promote investment, things will enhance productivity will be very important for sustained growth. i worry what people say we just need people spending more to grow thewe economy. a lot of people are overleveraged, so a more come will neverve get the bubbles wil always be part of the country and there willl be ups and downs but a more even keel sustained approach to how we grow the economy would be all of our best interest. >> host: i want to ask you about the debt ceiling. we had congressman boyle on the program a couple weeks ago. he's called for a limited the debt ceiling think it's done nothing to restrict our spending. it only creates fiscal crises on a couple months or a couple

years basis. where are you on the debt ceiling? >> guest: i wrote a piece a couple weeks ago about this, and i am in the middle. this is what likes to be a squishy centrist. here's what i think. the debt ceiling has been used in a dangerous way increasing here's what where people have threatened to default which should be inconceivable,ea which is like it is just saying we will sacrifice our own economy, weaponized are only come if we don't get what we want. that is not how you negotiate. that is not how you run a country. i'm very worried about watching people take the debt ceiling to the ultimate memo where you're knocking to raise which means it's a default. on the other hand, i would not like to see us get rid of the debt ceiling without replacing it with something. right now it's only check we have on the debt. ifck you look at the plant for e next year despite the budgets that it passed in the house and senate, we have a plan to borrow $10 trillion or more over the next decade. that's countries plan.

i would've thought that's a terrible thing and we should do something about it but without some kind of restriction on borrowing the end result is politicians tend tong bar more because it's easy. it's easy, the political easy thing to do. we need to reform the debt ceiling so that if you're taking a vote to increase the debt, that should be when you have to raise the debt ceiling. if we end up having a av a tax m bill that increases the debt, at a profound help that we don't come it would be a bad idea but if you have bill that increases the debt, the people who support that vote, the bill should have to vote to increase the debt ceiling fan. that's when we're entering into those commitments. i also think they should be a break the class option where we are never talk about to fall. depression or leadership should have an ability to raise the debt ceiling if congress will not go along with them but they should be something sickleli tht go along with that perhaps some automatic savings that come with that.to let's reform it, let's not get rid of any constraint because right now to speak as y