Hatch: I don’t want tax reform ‘to be some piece of crap’

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said Thursday that he hopes the new Republican plan for tax reform doesn’t become “some piece of crap,” looking ahead to the bill’s likely alterations in Congress before being voted on, according to Politico. 

“It’s mostly all complicated,” Hatch said of the proposed tax legislation.  “I want it to be the right kind of bill. I don’t want it to be some piece of crap, which we’re so used to around here.” 

President Trump and congressional Republicans outlined the new tax plan on Wednesday, which seeks far-reaching cuts that would consolidate individual tax rates and slash corporate taxes. 

{mosads}Hatch, who helped draft the nine-page framework and whose committee oversees legislation on taxes, said that the greatest obstacle to passing the legislation is “fellow senators.” 

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top-ranking Democrat on the committee, has called the Republican tax plan a “far-right Republican scheme to endow future generations of the mega-wealthy and leave what amounts to crumbs for the middle-class behind.” 

While the tax plan would cut the number of individual tax rates to three from seven and nearly double the standard tax deduction for individuals, it would raise the bottom tax rate from 10 to 12 percent. However, the plan also includes the option for lawmakers to raise rates above 35 percent for top-income earners.