WASHINGTON �� The Republican Party hasn't abandoned the goal of making President Donald Trump's tax-cut plan revenue-neutral and can make it so by increasing economic growth, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday.
"Actually we're not, because that's a rather conservative estimate of how much growth you'll get out of this pro-growth tax reform," McConnell said on "Fox News Sunday" when asked if hoped-for tax cuts would increase the federal budget deficit.
In interviews on Fox and on CNN's "State of the Union," McConnell declined to go into the details of the plan, including whether he favors an additional tax bracket for the wealthiest Americas or how tax treatment of 401(k) plans might be changed.
"It's going to be hashed out in the open," McConnell said on Fox.
The Senate Thursday adopted a fiscal 2018 budget resolution that House Republican leaders agreed to accept, a show of unity aimed at speeding consideration of Trump's plan to enact tax cuts. Final approval of the budget measure would enable a procedure allowing Republicans to pass a subsequent tax code rewrite without Democratic support.
Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget, said on "Fox News Sunday" that balancing the federal budget merely by cutting spending hadn't worked, a failure he tied to politics" Instead, the U.S. can reduce its debt by lifting economic growth to more than 3 percent, he said.
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(Niquette reported from Columbus, Ohio.)
