On Fox News Sunday, Sen. Barrasso Discusses Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 -- The office of Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, issued the following news release:

U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) appeared on "Fox News Sunday" this morning to talk about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Below are key excerpts of the interview:

On What's in the Bill:

"Let me take a step back to say a year ago the American people voted for fundamental change in this country, and tax reform is a very big part of it. People wanting to keep more of their hard-earned money. That's what you see in the bills that passed both the House and the Senate. Absolutely there are some changes that still need to be made in conference to work these things out.

"The other thing that you haven't mentioned - the big difference is that the Republican bill in the Senate eliminates the mandate of Obamacare. It takes Obamacare from being a mandatory program to a voluntary program.

"And yes, I like the idea of taking away the death tax entirely. The other thing that we're doing in terms of helping stimulate the economy: President Trump talks about energy dominance for America. We allow more energy exploration in an area of Alaska that has been off-limits for a long time.

And I hope those are included.

On the Differences Between House and Senate Bills:

"There is going to be a conference committee. Members from the House and Senate will get together to look for the best solutions. But we are not that far apart. Fundamentally for the American public, we double - double - the standard deduction. Double the child tax credits. We will lower the rates.

And in terms of investing in America and an America-first economy, we lower tax rates for Main Street businesses all across the country, as well as corporations to make us much more competitive internationally, so investments are made in America and not overseas.

On the Corporate Tax Rate:

"We have 20 percent in both the House and the Senate. That's the number that I would like to see. President Trump came to our policy lunch on Tuesday. I thought he did a wonderful job explaining how important this is because once we get tax reform done and he's ready and willing to sign the tax relief for the American people, the tax reductions and tax cuts that people are desperately looking for to get the economy growing even faster, he said then we can go onto additional things, infrastructure, all the important things.

"Everybody is going to have to decide for themselves how they would vote. My preference is 20 percent. I think we have a very good bill out in the Senate.

The House has some components. I think this is a major step forward for the American public, we are going to get this to the president's desk for his signature before the end of the year.

On the JCT Report:

"Two things. One, the good news is this group tends to be wildly pessimistic, has actually said that there will be economic growth as a result of the things we were proposing with this tax relief bill. They are wildly pessimistic. Economists across the board believe that we will do much, much better.

"Just take a look at the current economy. These are all based on 1.8 stagnant Obama numbers. We don't have to do much to get up to much higher numbers because the last two quarters, we've had over 3 percent economic growth in this country and we had two million new jobs already created since the day President Trump was elected, and a lot of that has to do with the reform of regulations. When you do regulatory relief as well as tax relief, I think we are going to have an accelerated growth of the economy way beyond what people are predicting.

On Major Companies and Tax Savings:

"When we take our tax rates, the corporate rates from one of the highest in the world to now one of the lower tax rates in the world, we have a global economy, money will come rushing into the United States to invest here. I expect to see incredible amounts of investment from around the world. We live in a global economy even though the Joint Committee on Taxation really doesn't look at it that way when they do their evaluation and assessments.

On Funding and Keeping the Government Open:

"I think we need to keep the government open. To me, that's what a mature, responsible governing group does. You're right, it does require bipartisan participation. I thought it was incredibly childish for Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to not go to that White House meeting that they were scheduled to go to with President Trump. I thought it was irresponsible on their part because we need to work together to keep the government open. I would like to move that date into either January or February. We need to fund the government and do it competently.

On Possible DACA Fix:

"The Democrats have threatened to shut down the government over dealing with illegal immigrants. People that are in the country illegally, I think that's the wrong way to go. We had Democrats speak to that effect and I think that that recent result in that case and that verdict points to the impact that illegal immigration has had in our country to a detrimental effect."