Capito Touts Benefits of Pro-Growth Tax Reform

WASHINGTON, DC – With the House approving legislation to reform the tax code and the Senate moving forward on a similar version of the bill, U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) appeared before a breakfast discussion of The Ripon Society yesterday morning to give an update on the bill’s progress, and why it is so important to pass it this year.

“To me, this is a chance to do something big and bold,” Capito stated. “To help everybody across the board and make a difference. Lots of times, you think you are going to make a big difference and not everyone sees it — or you can’t even really see the kind difference you are really making.  This is one of those occasions where a difference will be seen — a jump start to the economy. It is going to be enormous — job creation, wages, growth of jobs — all the things you’ve heard us talking about.”

Capito is in her first term in the Senate, after serving seven terms in the U.S. House.  Elected in 2014, she is a member of the Senate Appropriations, Energy and Natural Resources, Rules, and Environment & Public Works Committees, where she has further established the reputation she built on the other side of the Capitol as a common sense conservative who stands up for the people of her home state. In addition, she has been a leading voice for pro-growth tax reform, and recently delivered the fifth in a series of Senate floor speeches illustrating how simplifying the code will not only provide relief for middle-class families, but save West Virginians both their time and their money.

She has also praised where the President stands in this regard.

“President Trump’s tax vision is the right one for West Virginia,” she said in a recent statement.  “Anyone who says otherwise has it wrong. Tax reform will help the roughly half of American families who are living paycheck to paycheck. It will give them money to make ends meet now and save for the future. President Trump knows this — and I look forward to working with him and my colleagues to deliver this change to West Virginians. Those who oppose tax reform are defending a status quo that isn’t working for West Virginia families.”

She struck a similar chord in her remarks to The Ripon Society yesterday morning, criticizing reform opponents for their shopworn attacks that claim the Senate legislation would benefit only a wealthy few.

“They go right back to the same rhetoric they try all the time,” Capito said of the attacks.  “I think the American people are numb to this. They are numb to the, ‘It’s only for the wealthy’ [argument] because that’s the only thing they can say that they think will break through.  I can tell you, I was at a parade on Saturday … I actually got people just kind of yelling at me, ‘Come on, you guys do this.  You say you’re going to do it. Give us tax reform!  Give us a tax cut!  We want tax relief!’”

As for concerns that the decision to include language to repeal the Obamacare mandate will harm the bill’s chances of being approved, the West Virginia lawmaker was blunt.

“Here is the way that I look at that,” she stated.  “We are not telling anybody not to buy insurance.  We are just saying we are not going to tax you if you make that choice or if you can’t afford it because it is too expensive. If you look at the statistics in West Virginia, 41% of the people who are taxed make $25,000 or less, and 81% of the people who are taxed make $50,000 or less. That is a tax on the middle class that says, ‘If you don’t buy insurance, you are getting taxed.’ So I reject this proposal by CBO that 15 million people are all of a sudden going to flee insurance. I think it’s fuzzy math, and I feel fully confident if we look at ways to stabilize the exchanges, I think we are going to be fine.”

The Ripon Society is a public policy organization that was founded in 1962 and takes its name from the town where the Republican Party was born in 1854 – Ripon, Wisconsin. One of the main goals of The Ripon Society is to promote the ideas and principles that have made America great and contributed to the GOP’s success. These ideas include keeping our nation secure, keeping taxes low and having a federal government that is smaller, smarter and more accountable to the people.