On Thursday morning at AEI, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) gave remarks on the recently passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. He discussed the impact of the new tax plan and what it means for the American economy moving forward.
Following his remarks, Chairman Brady joined AEI’s Alex Brill for a discussion on the potential opportunities and impacts of tax reform. Mr. Brill asked Chairman Brady about the features of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the ways in which the act would affect different individuals. Mr. Brill discussed the significance of the corporate tax rate cut and the change in standard deduction that tax reform would bring. Chairman Brady concluded by emphasizing the importance of moving to a simpler tax system.
While speaking as a panelist, Alex Brill says, “we can have a tax reform that is net positive for the overall economy. With a better system, one different from the system we have today, the size of the US economy will be larger than it otherwise would be. It will take time from the day of enactment to the day that that effect is fully realized. And during that period of time, the economy will grow faster and then it will reach this new higher level that it otherwise wouldn’t reach and we will all be better off as a result of that.”
Alex Brill discussed the Earned Income Tax Credit: “One of the things I note when I think about the federal income tax with respect to low and moderate income workers in the disparity to which the tax code affects different people within that population differently. That’s always true across the income spectrum but it’s particularly true among low and middle income families and households.”
At an event on conservative policies for helping poor and middle-class Americans, Alex Brill discussed how best to promote upward mobility: “I think that in the long run, if we provide some relief or assistance to those workers and those families without the kind of structural reforms that Speaker Ryan was talking about — closing the skills gap and things like that — then what are we going to do ten years from now when those people aren’t moving up through the system?”
From the Coalition to Protect Patient Choice:
“The last panelist was Alex Brill… [who] spoke about FDA reform and specifically about patent issues relating to biologic drugs and their generic counterparts known as biosimilars. He stated that biosimilar entry has not been as robust as was envisioned by the Affordable Care Act, due to archaic regulatory schemes, anticompetitive conduct, and cost-benefit analysis.”
