May 29, 2025 • 22 mins
Jason Smith, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee - the oldest committee in the US Congress - joins David Rubenstein to discuss the tax bill his team has been working on. He outlines the bill's key provisions and the challenges of moving it through both the House and Senate. He speaks with David Rubenstein for an episode of The David Rubenstein Show: Peer to Peer Conversations. This interview was recorded May 15 at the Economic Club of Washington DC.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Jason Smith of Missouri, as chairman of the House Ways
and Means Committee, which was responsible for drafting tax legislation,
had a chance to ask him how the new tax
legislation is going to change the way the economy operates.
Let's talk about the overall bill itself. Now, the bill
has passed the House Ways and Means Committee. Now you
need to get a rule from the Rules Committee, and
(00:23):
then you take it to the floor.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Is that the way it works?
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Pretty close to that.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Since we're using the rules of reconciliation, which is a
tool to help the Senate get the fifty one votes
to pass pass any legislation, there's certain parameters that we
have to fall under. We had to pass the Budget resolution.
The Budget Resolution was passed by both the House and
the Senate, and it gave us specific instructions. And within
that budget resolution, it instructed eleven different committees in the
(00:52):
House of Representatives. Ten of the eleven have marked up.
The last one is finishing up right now, the ad Committee,
And once all eleven are done their bills that they
marked up, it goes to the Budget Committee.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
So let's talk about how we got to where we
are today in coming up with the bill that you
have passed through the committee. Did you meet with the Treasury,
with the Senate Finance Committee people, and the President from
time to time? And how regularly did you meet with
these people?
Speaker 4 (01:22):
So we had the Big Six meetings, which was referred
to as the Speaker of the House, the Leader of
the Senate, so mister Thune, also Chairman Crapo of the
Finance Committee, myself, It had Kevin Hassett economic advisor, and
then also the Treasury Secretary of Besson, and so the
six of us met quite often. Typically it's about every
(01:46):
week to two weeks, and we've been doing that for
several months right now, discussing different tax provisions. But in
regards to my counterpart over on the Senate side, Chairman Crepo,
we talk, our teams communicate NonStop, and we've been working
pretty well hand in glove.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
President get involved too. Did you meeting the President in
the Oval office talk about the bill or how often
did that happen?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I do.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Our President is very accessible and he calls me when
he wants to talk tax or trade or some other
items that's within our committee's jurisdiction, and so I've met
with him several times. On this on this tax bill.
Twice in the last two weeks in the Oval office.
I shared with him the main priorities that he asked
(02:32):
us to deliver on, and what I could deliver on
and what I couldn't deliver on.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Okay, so let's go through some of those.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
So the main thing that he wanted, I thought, was
to get the tax cuts that we'd had before extended
for corporations and for individuals, so individuals will have their
tax rate be the same as it's currently Is that right.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
The first thing in his first priority was permanency of
his expiring two thousand and seven tax cuts, and some
of the main items that we're expiring was all the
individual rates would go up. This makes the current rates
that you're paying taxes right now will stay the current rates,
regardless of what tax bracket that you're in. The child
(03:16):
tax credit was going to be slashed in half. It
would have went from two thousand to one thousand. We
made permanent the two thousand dollars child tax credit, the
guaranteed deduction, which ninety one percent of Americans used to
file their taxes, that got doubled in twenty seventeen. It's
roughly fifteen thousand dollars per person right now, and we
(03:38):
made that permanent as well.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
So let's talk about things that President was famous for
morning and the bill No tax on tips. Is that
because people getting tips or paying a lot of taxes.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
The idea of the no tax on tips to the
President was he was actually having dinner at one of
his properties in Nevada during the campaign and the waitress said,
can you not tax my tips? And that's where the
idea came from from a waitress in Nevada to the President.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
And so what you know, what we've.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Done within this bill is to eliminate the tax on
tips altogether.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
What about no tax on overtime? What if you take
care of that?
Speaker 3 (04:22):
We did.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
We eliminated no tax on overtime. It affects about eighty
million workers across the country. And we put special guidelines
both in no Tax on tips and overtime that it
can't be high compensated employees. For example, by definition within statute,
a high compensated employee as someone who makes more than
(04:44):
one hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
What about now?
Speaker 1 (04:47):
President also talked about no tax on Social Security what
about that.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
So within the rules of reconciliation, by statute, you cannot
touch social Security, and so we wanted to make sure
we delivered on this priority in reconciliation. And if you
want to know about the Social Security tax in like
nineteen eighty one, it was created that you were tax
free off your first twenty five thousand dollars for an
(05:14):
individual or thirty two thousand for a married couple, and
that hasn't changed in forty three, forty four years. And
so there is an item within the tax code that
you get an added standard deduction if you're a senior,
if you're sixty five years old or older. It's currently
(05:35):
about two thousand dollars that could be added on top
of your guaranteed deduction, and so we've increased that four
thousand dollars per person so that their deduction would be
six thousand. And that equates to anyone who makes less
than seventy five thousand dollars per person, so seventy five
(05:55):
for an individual or one hundred and fifty for a
married that they would not be paid any taxes on
their Social Security because of the tax cuts from the
income code.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Let's talk about the famous carried interest provision.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
I've never heard of it.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, well I should disclose.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I don't collect carried interest the way I've structured my
affairs because I didn't like being criticized for it so much.
So I'm not a carried interest recipient any longer. It
is reporting the press that the President of the United
States likes to get rid of carried interest, and you
didn't do.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
That in this bill, So is he going to be upset?
Speaker 4 (06:30):
So throughout this whole process, David, I've had to thread
a needle. We have one of the smallest majorities in
the history of Congress, both in the House and the Senate,
and so I can only lose three people in passing
this tax bill, and so trying to thread that needle
(06:50):
where people are in the extremes in all areas, whether
it's the green credits, whether it's salt, whether it's other
various tax provisions. Just trying to find that balance has
been what I've been striving and trying to to do
in this bill. In regards to carried interest, I got
a letter from thirty five different members of our Congress
(07:15):
for being committee chairman that was saying, do not put
this in the bill. We can't support the bill. It
was a priority. The President wanted it. The President had
a lot of priorities, and I delivered on most of them.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
What about the other one which doesn't affect me, either
the sports stadium exemption or something.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Is that did that get in there?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Or what I delivered on that one?
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Okay, So, but you're going to be fine.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
You're going to be fine, David, because you've purchased the
team before it.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Takes Oh yeah, okay, good, thank you.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
So it's only new owners.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Okay, okay, good. So I'm glad to hear that.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
So okay, I was thinking, oh, thanking, okay, thanks very much.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
So I saw it, which is a state and local
tax deduction. It was limited to ten thousand dollars. Now
you've increased its thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
Yes, we increased it three hundred percent because it was
currently ten thousand. Now it's at three three hundred percent increase.
It's thirty thousand.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Unless you have a larger income than which case it
goes down a bit.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Yeah, it's thirty thousand. If you make less than four
hundred thousand dollars. A year and then it starts phasing
back down to ten thousand. So we've we've tried to
find what is that that good spot. Even talking to
my ranking member, he's like, salts just salts an obstacle
for both parties in that sense.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
And so.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
We've checked numbers like I've I've got numbers from Treasury
and the irs of the different Salt congressional districts within
our conference, and this thirty thousand dollars cap that we
have under four hundred thousand will provide more than ninety
percent of every one of our SALT members districts coverage
(09:04):
under this.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
So it's a balance.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
It's not everything that some of the SALT members want,
but I have members of our conference that doesn't even
think you should be able to deduct one dollar, let
alone thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
But it's a fair balance approach.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
When do you think the bill will actually become law?
Is it before the end of the year or before
the end of the Congress.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
My goal is July fourth. I want the President to
be able to sign into law on July fourth. That's
my goal, and that's the president's goal.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
You are from the Great state of Missouri, Missouri.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Is there any other all right?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
And did you grow up in a city, a big
city like Saint Louis or something like that.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
So the congressional district that I represent, David, my family's
called it home for seven generations. My hometown is less
than five people. It's called Salem, Missouri. It's the county seat.
The population of my county is only about sixteen thousand.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So what is the main business of your district? Is
it farming?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Agriculture?
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Agriculture without a doubt in manufacturing.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
I grew up working on my grandparents farm.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
My father was an auto mechanic, and so where I
lived was we had a single white trailer right next
to his auto repair business, which was just a two
bay unit, and my grandparents farm was three miles away,
and so I always spent the weekends, the summers, the
evenings working on the farm. And now I own that farm.
(10:41):
I purchased it when my granddad died.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
But you decided to get into politics. So you went
to college.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Where University of Missouri in Colombia. Graduated with two degrees.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
At twenty business administration emphasis finance and agriculture economics. And
then I went to law school three days later.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
All right, so you're a lawyer as well, but you
did not practice law.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
I practiced law for just about a year and then
got elected to the Missouri State House when I was
twenty four. Was one of the youngest members in the
Missouri State House. I became the majority whip, the youngest
Speaker pro tem in Missouri's history, and then ran for
Congress at thirty two.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Thirty two, So you got elected and what year did
you get elected Congress?
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Initially it was June of twenty thirteen. I will never
forget my first day I got sworn in. My predecessor
was Congresswoman Joe and Emerson, and she led me down
to the floor. She was there when I got sworn
in entire with the Missouri delegation, and she's like, do
you know how to get back to your office, which
my office was her old office at that time in
(11:50):
the Rayburn House Office building.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
And I was like, yeah, I can do it.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Right, So okay, So now, how do you go from
being a young member of Congress to being the Waysey
Means Committee used to be Seniority?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
How did you become the chairman of the Waysey Means Committee.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
It's all about relationships.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
I go back to that first day that when I
was sworn into office. My senator at that time was
Roy Blunt, and Roy Blunt pulled me aside and he said, Jason,
there's two.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Ways you can be effective in Washington, d C.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
One you can be here for twenty years and just
build natural seniority, or two you can build relationships. And
so I made it a focus to schedule five to
fifteen minute meetings, coffees teas with every member of Congress
that would meet with me whenever I came up here,
because they all knew who I was, being the new
special election kid, but I didn't know who the other
(12:47):
four hundred and thirty four were. And so I just
started going through getting to know them, not asking for anything,
but just figure out where we have some common ground,
all right.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So it used to be on seniority. You work your
way up up and then you become a chairman of
the committee. Now the members of each caucus decide who
they want to have. And so you ran for an
election as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. I did,
and you got elected the last congress I did.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
I've been elected twice now, as Chairman of the House
Ways and Means Committee.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
I worked really hard.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
I traveled to forty two of the fifty states, campaigning
for my colleagues and for candidates in eighty seven different
congressional districts. I did more than three hundred TV appearance
appearances trying to push the Republican message. And I met
with every one of the thirty plus members of the
(13:41):
Steering Committee multiple times, giving them the pitch of why
I should lead the Ways and Means Committee and under
what leadership I would lead on.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
So what was your most effective argument for why somebody
from a farming district in Missouri should be the chairman
of the Ways and Means Committee at a relatively young age.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Believe that our party is not the party of seniority
or who's next in line, but it's the party who's
best for the job.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
And I felt like I was the best.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Person for the job. That's why I was running for it.
I wouldn't have wouldn't have done it. And I said
that if you elect me to be the chairman of
this committee, that the policies it's within the Ways and
Means jurisdiction, tax trade, healthcare, social security needs to be
the policies that reflect the priorities of the working class.
(14:29):
I'm a product of the working class.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
I grew up in a.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Single by trailer most of my life, and then we
upgraded to a double wide. My mother was a factory worker,
just so that we had health insurance. That's how we
made it by. But I am so grateful for how
I was raised, because it doesn't matter like what family
you're born into. If you get a quality education and
you're determined to work hard and not give up, you
(14:54):
can accomplish just about anything. And that's how I view
everything that I've done, whether it's becoming the Ways Means chairman,
or when I ran for Congress, there were twenty six
other Republicans that I had to beat out in order
to just become the nominee to take my predecessor spot.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
So when you were elected chairman of the Weaseley Means Committee,
did you call your mother and explain it to her
and was she ecstatic or what did you say?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
She's like, what does that mean?
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Does she tell everybody her son is the chairman of
the Waisley Means Committee?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Or she doesn't she doesn't like people don't care.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
I don't care.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
My friends and neighbors don't care. It's so funny.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
I woke up this morning with the text message from
a high school classmate who's a school teacher in my hometown.
She's like, why is your face continuing to pop up
on the TV?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Like are you important? I was like, no, not at all.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
If you want to call the President of United States?
How long does it take before you get a callback?
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Most time when I call him, he answers, he's He
is the most accessible.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Executive I have or worked with.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
I'll wake up in the morning sometimes from a text
message from the President at five thirty in the morning
and it's sent to me at like two thirty, and
I'm like, oh, no, he knows I was sleeping, you know.
So he's always working. He'll text you. I can text him.
He is so productive in regards to talking policy.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Now that you've got this bill behind you, what is
the highest priority when you get the bill through the
House and the Senate and you've ultimately how he his
life worth ceremony?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Is it to deal with trade? Is that your next
big issue?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
So multiple things.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
We have to get this bill signed into law, delivered
for the American people, but after it's signed into law,
I'm going to hold I'm going to hold Treasury accountable
to make sure that they're implementing the tax bill how
Congress passed it.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
It's not always been fun.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
That's going to be a big priority to make sure
that the tax codes implemented as the priority that we're
passing Congress.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
But trade, trade is super poor.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
Ninety six percent of the world's consumers are outside of
the United States. I represent a farming congressional district. We
were dependent on trade. We grow rice, corn, cotton, beef,
cattle in my district, and so we need more markets.
We need to eliminate those those non tariff barriers.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Let's suppose you have all this in the big bill,
and let's suppose it passes. The total cost of the
big beautiful bill, your parts and other things, is it
four trillion dollars or something like that.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
It was the House number was you could not exceed
four and a half trillion, Yeah, trillion. And then they
had this ratchet item that if you didn't didn't make
two trillion dollars worth of spending cuts, it would ratchet
down to four trillion. And so our bill actually comes
in below four trillion dollars.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
But part of the Big Beautiful Bill is to have
the increase of the debt limit. Right now, we have
a debt limit that's pull more more or less, it's
sort of expired a while ago. But you're going to
pass in this Big Beautiful bill as it a five
trillion dollar increase in the debt limit something like that.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
So you're right.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
The debt limit, David expired at the first of the year.
We're operating under extraordinary measures right now is what they
refer to, and it's projected that will last us some
time in July.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
And so we have to address that.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
And part of the bill that we voted out a
committee increase the debt limit. It increased the debt limit
four trillion dollars, which was in the budget instructions that
we were required to do. The Senate instructions is higher
with a higher debt limit, and so that's one of
those things that I'm sure that is going to be
figured out throughout.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I just get rid of the debt limit completely.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
We've raised it over ninety times since it first was
put into effect in the early part of the twentieth century.
We've never really complied with it, Why not just get
rid of it? I think President Trump said he would
like to get rid of it.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
At one point I was about to say, you, David,
you and President Trump are exactly agreeing on that issue.
And I think there's a lot of members of both
parties that that view the debt limit as like a
very poison pill that individuals have to worry about, and
when you think about defaulting on US debt, that can
(19:18):
create a big problem.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
So well, you think it's unlikely that we're going to
get rid of the debt limit in this bill, We're
just going to increase it.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Probably.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
I tell everyone, I've said this before the bills were
out there, is that pretty much everything's on the table
because we don't know what is needed to thread that
needle to get the votes. People will talk about different
tax brackets or whatever, and I would just say everything's
on the table.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Is your expectation the Senate will take your bill and
say it's really great and we're going to pass it,
or it's going to come back to you.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
So I'm sure they will make changes. We've been working
with Senate Finance. I've been meeting with numerous Senators have
been calling me telling me their priorities. We put a
lot of the senator's priorities in this bill.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
So what is the best way to get something in
the tax bill? Or was the best way is it
to call you up personally? Text you certain lobbyists have accessed.
What's the best way to convince a member of the
Ways and Means Committee or the chairman put something in
the bill or take something out?
Speaker 4 (20:23):
So I changed how we run the Ways and Means
Committee from my very first committee hearing. My first committee
hearing as chairman was not in Washington. We did it
in Petersburg, West Virginia, at a lumberyard, and we brought
in a restaurant owner, a coal miner, working moms, and
(20:44):
farmers just to hear of the issues that they were
facing in today's economy. I set up ten different tax
teams where I picked ten different members of my committee
to chair for over the last year, where they traveled
to more than twenty three different states themselves, had more
than one hundred and twenty site visits. They met with
(21:07):
stakeholders to listen to all items within the code, and
then we brought that all back.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Let's suppose I'm just a lobbyist. I have one provision.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Is it to wait outside your office and as you're
walking somewhere talk to you.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Is that a very effective way?
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Please don't.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
What I do want to say is is we have
a three hundred and almost four hundred page bill, and
I'm sure there's things that we may have not saw
all the facts in and when you hit one domino here,
it can really mess up some other dominoes.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
I want.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
I want any American who feels like that there's an
unintended consequence of what we're trying to do that we
may not be aware of, please let us know.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
And are you ever thinking of running for a state
wide office? Would you ever consider running for the Senate
or the governorship.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
I didn't originally plan when I came to Congress that
I would be Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee,
and I've had such a great honor to do this.
I just want to make a difference in the lives
of the people who have trusted me and sent me
to Washington, and so I haven't really planned ahead of
anything other than let's pass this one big, beautiful bill.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
You can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple,
or wherever you listen.
Jason Smith of Missouri, as chairman of the House Ways
and Means Committee, which was responsible for drafting tax legislation,
had a chance to ask him how the new tax
legislation is going to change the way the economy operates.
Let's talk about the overall bill itself. Now, the bill
has passed the House Ways and Means Committee. Now you
need to get a rule from the Rules Committee, and
(00:23):
then you take it to the floor.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Is that the way it works?
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Pretty close to that.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Since we're using the rules of reconciliation, which is a
tool to help the Senate get the fifty one votes
to pass pass any legislation, there's certain parameters that we
have to fall under. We had to pass the Budget resolution.
The Budget Resolution was passed by both the House and
the Senate, and it gave us specific instructions. And within
that budget resolution, it instructed eleven different committees in the
(00:52):
House of Representatives. Ten of the eleven have marked up.
The last one is finishing up right now, the ad Committee,
And once all eleven are done their bills that they
marked up, it goes to the Budget Committee.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
So let's talk about how we got to where we
are today in coming up with the bill that you
have passed through the committee. Did you meet with the Treasury,
with the Senate Finance Committee people, and the President from
time to time? And how regularly did you meet with
these people?
Speaker 4 (01:22):
So we had the Big Six meetings, which was referred
to as the Speaker of the House, the Leader of
the Senate, so mister Thune, also Chairman Crapo of the
Finance Committee, myself, It had Kevin Hassett economic advisor, and
then also the Treasury Secretary of Besson, and so the
six of us met quite often. Typically it's about every
(01:46):
week to two weeks, and we've been doing that for
several months right now, discussing different tax provisions. But in
regards to my counterpart over on the Senate side, Chairman Crepo,
we talk, our teams communicate NonStop, and we've been working
pretty well hand in glove.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
President get involved too. Did you meeting the President in
the Oval office talk about the bill or how often
did that happen?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I do.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Our President is very accessible and he calls me when
he wants to talk tax or trade or some other
items that's within our committee's jurisdiction, and so I've met
with him several times. On this on this tax bill.
Twice in the last two weeks in the Oval office.
I shared with him the main priorities that he asked
(02:32):
us to deliver on, and what I could deliver on
and what I couldn't deliver on.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Okay, so let's go through some of those.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
So the main thing that he wanted, I thought, was
to get the tax cuts that we'd had before extended
for corporations and for individuals, so individuals will have their
tax rate be the same as it's currently Is that right.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
The first thing in his first priority was permanency of
his expiring two thousand and seven tax cuts, and some
of the main items that we're expiring was all the
individual rates would go up. This makes the current rates
that you're paying taxes right now will stay the current rates,
regardless of what tax bracket that you're in. The child
(03:16):
tax credit was going to be slashed in half. It
would have went from two thousand to one thousand. We
made permanent the two thousand dollars child tax credit, the
guaranteed deduction, which ninety one percent of Americans used to
file their taxes, that got doubled in twenty seventeen. It's
roughly fifteen thousand dollars per person right now, and we
(03:38):
made that permanent as well.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
So let's talk about things that President was famous for
morning and the bill No tax on tips. Is that
because people getting tips or paying a lot of taxes.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
The idea of the no tax on tips to the
President was he was actually having dinner at one of
his properties in Nevada during the campaign and the waitress said,
can you not tax my tips? And that's where the
idea came from from a waitress in Nevada to the President.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
And so what you know, what we've.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Done within this bill is to eliminate the tax on
tips altogether.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
What about no tax on overtime? What if you take
care of that?
Speaker 3 (04:22):
We did.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
We eliminated no tax on overtime. It affects about eighty
million workers across the country. And we put special guidelines
both in no Tax on tips and overtime that it
can't be high compensated employees. For example, by definition within statute,
a high compensated employee as someone who makes more than
(04:44):
one hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
What about now?
Speaker 1 (04:47):
President also talked about no tax on Social Security what
about that.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
So within the rules of reconciliation, by statute, you cannot
touch social Security, and so we wanted to make sure
we delivered on this priority in reconciliation. And if you
want to know about the Social Security tax in like
nineteen eighty one, it was created that you were tax
free off your first twenty five thousand dollars for an
(05:14):
individual or thirty two thousand for a married couple, and
that hasn't changed in forty three, forty four years. And
so there is an item within the tax code that
you get an added standard deduction if you're a senior,
if you're sixty five years old or older. It's currently
(05:35):
about two thousand dollars that could be added on top
of your guaranteed deduction, and so we've increased that four
thousand dollars per person so that their deduction would be
six thousand. And that equates to anyone who makes less
than seventy five thousand dollars per person, so seventy five
(05:55):
for an individual or one hundred and fifty for a
married that they would not be paid any taxes on
their Social Security because of the tax cuts from the
income code.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Let's talk about the famous carried interest provision.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
I've never heard of it.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, well I should disclose.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I don't collect carried interest the way I've structured my
affairs because I didn't like being criticized for it so much.
So I'm not a carried interest recipient any longer. It
is reporting the press that the President of the United
States likes to get rid of carried interest, and you
didn't do.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
That in this bill, So is he going to be upset?
Speaker 4 (06:30):
So throughout this whole process, David, I've had to thread
a needle. We have one of the smallest majorities in
the history of Congress, both in the House and the Senate,
and so I can only lose three people in passing
this tax bill, and so trying to thread that needle
(06:50):
where people are in the extremes in all areas, whether
it's the green credits, whether it's salt, whether it's other
various tax provisions. Just trying to find that balance has
been what I've been striving and trying to to do
in this bill. In regards to carried interest, I got
a letter from thirty five different members of our Congress
(07:15):
for being committee chairman that was saying, do not put
this in the bill. We can't support the bill. It
was a priority. The President wanted it. The President had
a lot of priorities, and I delivered on most of them.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
What about the other one which doesn't affect me, either
the sports stadium exemption or something.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Is that did that get in there?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Or what I delivered on that one?
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Okay, So, but you're going to be fine.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
You're going to be fine, David, because you've purchased the
team before it.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Takes Oh yeah, okay, good, thank you.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
So it's only new owners.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Okay, okay, good. So I'm glad to hear that.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
So okay, I was thinking, oh, thanking, okay, thanks very much.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
So I saw it, which is a state and local
tax deduction. It was limited to ten thousand dollars. Now
you've increased its thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
Yes, we increased it three hundred percent because it was
currently ten thousand. Now it's at three three hundred percent increase.
It's thirty thousand.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Unless you have a larger income than which case it
goes down a bit.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Yeah, it's thirty thousand. If you make less than four
hundred thousand dollars. A year and then it starts phasing
back down to ten thousand. So we've we've tried to
find what is that that good spot. Even talking to
my ranking member, he's like, salts just salts an obstacle
for both parties in that sense.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
And so.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
We've checked numbers like I've I've got numbers from Treasury
and the irs of the different Salt congressional districts within
our conference, and this thirty thousand dollars cap that we
have under four hundred thousand will provide more than ninety
percent of every one of our SALT members districts coverage
(09:04):
under this.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
So it's a balance.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
It's not everything that some of the SALT members want,
but I have members of our conference that doesn't even
think you should be able to deduct one dollar, let
alone thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
But it's a fair balance approach.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
When do you think the bill will actually become law?
Is it before the end of the year or before
the end of the Congress.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
My goal is July fourth. I want the President to
be able to sign into law on July fourth. That's
my goal, and that's the president's goal.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
You are from the Great state of Missouri, Missouri.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Is there any other all right?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
And did you grow up in a city, a big
city like Saint Louis or something like that.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
So the congressional district that I represent, David, my family's
called it home for seven generations. My hometown is less
than five people. It's called Salem, Missouri. It's the county seat.
The population of my county is only about sixteen thousand.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So what is the main business of your district? Is
it farming?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Agriculture?
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Agriculture without a doubt in manufacturing.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
I grew up working on my grandparents farm.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
My father was an auto mechanic, and so where I
lived was we had a single white trailer right next
to his auto repair business, which was just a two
bay unit, and my grandparents farm was three miles away,
and so I always spent the weekends, the summers, the
evenings working on the farm. And now I own that farm.
(10:41):
I purchased it when my granddad died.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
But you decided to get into politics. So you went
to college.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Where University of Missouri in Colombia. Graduated with two degrees.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
At twenty business administration emphasis finance and agriculture economics. And
then I went to law school three days later.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
All right, so you're a lawyer as well, but you
did not practice law.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
I practiced law for just about a year and then
got elected to the Missouri State House when I was
twenty four. Was one of the youngest members in the
Missouri State House. I became the majority whip, the youngest
Speaker pro tem in Missouri's history, and then ran for
Congress at thirty two.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Thirty two, So you got elected and what year did
you get elected Congress?
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Initially it was June of twenty thirteen. I will never
forget my first day I got sworn in. My predecessor
was Congresswoman Joe and Emerson, and she led me down
to the floor. She was there when I got sworn
in entire with the Missouri delegation, and she's like, do
you know how to get back to your office, which
my office was her old office at that time in
(11:50):
the Rayburn House Office building.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
And I was like, yeah, I can do it.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Right, So okay, So now, how do you go from
being a young member of Congress to being the Waysey
Means Committee used to be Seniority?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
How did you become the chairman of the Waysey Means Committee.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
It's all about relationships.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
I go back to that first day that when I
was sworn into office. My senator at that time was
Roy Blunt, and Roy Blunt pulled me aside and he said, Jason,
there's two.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Ways you can be effective in Washington, d C.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
One you can be here for twenty years and just
build natural seniority, or two you can build relationships. And
so I made it a focus to schedule five to
fifteen minute meetings, coffees teas with every member of Congress
that would meet with me whenever I came up here,
because they all knew who I was, being the new
special election kid, but I didn't know who the other
(12:47):
four hundred and thirty four were. And so I just
started going through getting to know them, not asking for anything,
but just figure out where we have some common ground,
all right.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So it used to be on seniority. You work your
way up up and then you become a chairman of
the committee. Now the members of each caucus decide who
they want to have. And so you ran for an
election as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. I did,
and you got elected the last congress I did.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
I've been elected twice now, as Chairman of the House
Ways and Means Committee.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
I worked really hard.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
I traveled to forty two of the fifty states, campaigning
for my colleagues and for candidates in eighty seven different
congressional districts. I did more than three hundred TV appearance
appearances trying to push the Republican message. And I met
with every one of the thirty plus members of the
(13:41):
Steering Committee multiple times, giving them the pitch of why
I should lead the Ways and Means Committee and under
what leadership I would lead on.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
So what was your most effective argument for why somebody
from a farming district in Missouri should be the chairman
of the Ways and Means Committee at a relatively young age.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Believe that our party is not the party of seniority
or who's next in line, but it's the party who's
best for the job.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
And I felt like I was the best.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Person for the job. That's why I was running for it.
I wouldn't have wouldn't have done it. And I said
that if you elect me to be the chairman of
this committee, that the policies it's within the Ways and
Means jurisdiction, tax trade, healthcare, social security needs to be
the policies that reflect the priorities of the working class.
(14:29):
I'm a product of the working class.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
I grew up in a.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Single by trailer most of my life, and then we
upgraded to a double wide. My mother was a factory worker,
just so that we had health insurance. That's how we
made it by. But I am so grateful for how
I was raised, because it doesn't matter like what family
you're born into. If you get a quality education and
you're determined to work hard and not give up, you
(14:54):
can accomplish just about anything. And that's how I view
everything that I've done, whether it's becoming the Ways Means chairman,
or when I ran for Congress, there were twenty six
other Republicans that I had to beat out in order
to just become the nominee to take my predecessor spot.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
So when you were elected chairman of the Weaseley Means Committee,
did you call your mother and explain it to her
and was she ecstatic or what did you say?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
She's like, what does that mean?
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Does she tell everybody her son is the chairman of
the Waisley Means Committee?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Or she doesn't she doesn't like people don't care.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
I don't care.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
My friends and neighbors don't care. It's so funny.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
I woke up this morning with the text message from
a high school classmate who's a school teacher in my hometown.
She's like, why is your face continuing to pop up
on the TV?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Like are you important? I was like, no, not at all.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
If you want to call the President of United States?
How long does it take before you get a callback?
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Most time when I call him, he answers, he's He
is the most accessible.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Executive I have or worked with.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
I'll wake up in the morning sometimes from a text
message from the President at five thirty in the morning
and it's sent to me at like two thirty, and
I'm like, oh, no, he knows I was sleeping, you know.
So he's always working. He'll text you. I can text him.
He is so productive in regards to talking policy.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Now that you've got this bill behind you, what is
the highest priority when you get the bill through the
House and the Senate and you've ultimately how he his
life worth ceremony?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Is it to deal with trade? Is that your next
big issue?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
So multiple things.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
We have to get this bill signed into law, delivered
for the American people, but after it's signed into law,
I'm going to hold I'm going to hold Treasury accountable
to make sure that they're implementing the tax bill how
Congress passed it.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
It's not always been fun.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
That's going to be a big priority to make sure
that the tax codes implemented as the priority that we're
passing Congress.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
But trade, trade is super poor.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
Ninety six percent of the world's consumers are outside of
the United States. I represent a farming congressional district. We
were dependent on trade. We grow rice, corn, cotton, beef,
cattle in my district, and so we need more markets.
We need to eliminate those those non tariff barriers.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Let's suppose you have all this in the big bill,
and let's suppose it passes. The total cost of the
big beautiful bill, your parts and other things, is it
four trillion dollars or something like that.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
It was the House number was you could not exceed
four and a half trillion, Yeah, trillion. And then they
had this ratchet item that if you didn't didn't make
two trillion dollars worth of spending cuts, it would ratchet
down to four trillion. And so our bill actually comes
in below four trillion dollars.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
But part of the Big Beautiful Bill is to have
the increase of the debt limit. Right now, we have
a debt limit that's pull more more or less, it's
sort of expired a while ago. But you're going to
pass in this Big Beautiful bill as it a five
trillion dollar increase in the debt limit something like that.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
So you're right.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
The debt limit, David expired at the first of the year.
We're operating under extraordinary measures right now is what they
refer to, and it's projected that will last us some
time in July.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
And so we have to address that.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
And part of the bill that we voted out a
committee increase the debt limit. It increased the debt limit
four trillion dollars, which was in the budget instructions that
we were required to do. The Senate instructions is higher
with a higher debt limit, and so that's one of
those things that I'm sure that is going to be
figured out throughout.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I just get rid of the debt limit completely.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
We've raised it over ninety times since it first was
put into effect in the early part of the twentieth century.
We've never really complied with it, Why not just get
rid of it? I think President Trump said he would
like to get rid of it.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
At one point I was about to say, you, David,
you and President Trump are exactly agreeing on that issue.
And I think there's a lot of members of both
parties that that view the debt limit as like a
very poison pill that individuals have to worry about, and
when you think about defaulting on US debt, that can
(19:18):
create a big problem.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
So well, you think it's unlikely that we're going to
get rid of the debt limit in this bill, We're
just going to increase it.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Probably.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
I tell everyone, I've said this before the bills were
out there, is that pretty much everything's on the table
because we don't know what is needed to thread that
needle to get the votes. People will talk about different
tax brackets or whatever, and I would just say everything's
on the table.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Is your expectation the Senate will take your bill and
say it's really great and we're going to pass it,
or it's going to come back to you.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
So I'm sure they will make changes. We've been working
with Senate Finance. I've been meeting with numerous Senators have
been calling me telling me their priorities. We put a
lot of the senator's priorities in this bill.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
So what is the best way to get something in
the tax bill? Or was the best way is it
to call you up personally? Text you certain lobbyists have accessed.
What's the best way to convince a member of the
Ways and Means Committee or the chairman put something in
the bill or take something out?
Speaker 4 (20:23):
So I changed how we run the Ways and Means
Committee from my very first committee hearing. My first committee
hearing as chairman was not in Washington. We did it
in Petersburg, West Virginia, at a lumberyard, and we brought
in a restaurant owner, a coal miner, working moms, and
(20:44):
farmers just to hear of the issues that they were
facing in today's economy. I set up ten different tax
teams where I picked ten different members of my committee
to chair for over the last year, where they traveled
to more than twenty three different states themselves, had more
than one hundred and twenty site visits. They met with
(21:07):
stakeholders to listen to all items within the code, and
then we brought that all back.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Let's suppose I'm just a lobbyist. I have one provision.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Is it to wait outside your office and as you're
walking somewhere talk to you.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Is that a very effective way?
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Please don't.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
What I do want to say is is we have
a three hundred and almost four hundred page bill, and
I'm sure there's things that we may have not saw
all the facts in and when you hit one domino here,
it can really mess up some other dominoes.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
I want.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
I want any American who feels like that there's an
unintended consequence of what we're trying to do that we
may not be aware of, please let us know.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
And are you ever thinking of running for a state
wide office? Would you ever consider running for the Senate
or the governorship.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
I didn't originally plan when I came to Congress that
I would be Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee,
and I've had such a great honor to do this.
I just want to make a difference in the lives
of the people who have trusted me and sent me
to Washington, and so I haven't really planned ahead of
anything other than let's pass this one big, beautiful bill.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
You can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple,
or wherever you listen.
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