A Republican Senator holding the reins of the body’s influential finance committee talked about working intimately with the nation’s largest business lobby to implement a legislative agenda throughout the 114th Congress. .
In what was referred to as a “Prebuttal” to the President’s State of the Union Address on Tuesday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) touched on tax reform, international trade, and healthcare in a speech at the US Chamber of Commerce. He promised to give the business lobby plenty of input when it comes to the committee’s work under his chairmanship.
“They work hand and glove with us and help us to understand when were wrong and help us to understand when to make things right,” Sen. Hatch said of the Chamber’s team of lobbyists and government affairs personnel.
“I very much appreciate the advice and counsel,” he added.
The new Chairman of the Senate’s Finance Committee, which holds jurisdiction over a wide swath of politically contentious issues, first took aim at the President’s new tax proposal, calling it “particularly damaging.”
In addition to closing some loopholes, the White House is calling for a small increase in the capital gains tax rate, which is paid primarily by high-income Americans who make money by lending it. The administration is also calling for increased fees on the nation’s largest financial institutions.
Those tax savings will be used to finance new education investments, and expanded middle and low-income tax credits for working couples and families. The President will formally unveil the plan in his annual speech on Tuesday night.
But Sen. Orrin Hatch, who will play a critical role in any tax reform debate on Capitol Hill, is saying the president’s proposal is already dead.
“This plan appears to be more about redistribution with added complexity and class warfare directed at job creation small business than about tax reform,” he claimed.
Hatch then deferred to the Chamber. “I’m sure all of you have your own thoughts about what the final product should look like,” he said, “I look forward to hearing from you as this process moves forward.”
Another priority highlighted by Sen. Hatch is advancing foreign trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
“My goal as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee is to help ensure these trade agreements meet high standards and provide the very best opportunities for American workers and businesses who hire them,” Hatch said.
He then threw his support behind what’s known as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which effectively eliminates the Senate’s role in amending or shaping trade deals like TPP and TTIP—agreements that are being negotiated and drafted in secret by US Trade Representative Michael Froman and his foreign counterparts. As The Sentinel has previously reported, lobbyists have praised the USTR for being responsive to their TPP-related concerns, and progressive senators have criticized the administration for being too eager to please big business in pushing the trade deal.
“My plan is to move carefully, but quickly, to mark up a TPA bill,” Hatch said.
On other issues, the Senator acknowledged that full repeal of the Affordable Care Act is impossible as long as President Obama is still in office, but promised that the Finance Committee will “continue to strike away at it piece by piece.” He mentioned Chamber-backed efforts like repeal of the medical device tax, the employer mandate, and thirty-hour workweek as proposals his committee would take up.
These, and other measures talked about by Sen. Hatch, like increasing the Medicare eligibility age and limiting Social Security benefits, will meet resistance from Democrats who, if unified, still hold enough of the upper chamber to filibuster bills.
In those cases, Sen. Hatch suggested that a process known as “Budget Reconciliation” might be in order. A procedural maneuver that allows legislation pertaining to the budget to be passed by a simple majority vote, Reconciliation was used by Senate Democrats to pass the Affordable Care Act in 2010.
“We should not and cannot take any tool off the table,” Hatch said. “The stakes are just too high.”
Another issue the Finance Committee will deal with is the debt-limit, which will once again be reached mid-year. Hatch didn’t take brinksmanship off the table, despite Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) repeated claims that a government shutdown isn’t in the cards under his watch.
“It is at this point uncertain how the near extension of the debt limit will be processed and what that will entail,” Hatch said.
In departing words, Sen. Hatch again showered praised on the business lobby.
“I’ve appreciated their support in my reelections, and I’ve appreciated their support up on Capitol Hill on so many issues,” he told the room.
In 2014, the big business lobby group spent nearly $92 million lobbying on Capitol Hill, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
