House Speaker Paul Ryan should stop pressing for a border tax on imports to help pay for the Republican package to lower taxes, Rep. Jim Jordan told CNBC's "Squawk Box" Wednesday.
Jordan, an Ohio Republican, blasted Ryan's plan as "a whole new tax placed on the American economy. This is not what we want to do. It's a tax that is going to hurt consumers. It's going to drive up the cost of every single good that Americans purchase. This thing should be dead. I think it is frankly dead."
Jordan, who is a member of the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus, was dismissive of the entire idea of revenue-neutral tax policy.
"That's just a fancy way of saying the tax burden is going to stay the same. We're going to shift around who pays what," he said.
But Jordan explained that "In that scenario, what always happens in this town is the connected class get a good deal and the middle class families get a bad deal … I think we should just lower the rates, design a good tax system that's conducive to growth, and move from there."
Republican leaders are trying to make their tax cuts revenue neutral out of a desire to gain the support of Republican lawmakers who don't want to raise the budget deficit and Democrats who say that it must pay for itself or they won't even consider the legislation.
But Jordan insists that is nonsense.
"Since when did Republicans say that letting people keep more of their money is somehow a cost to the government ... Let's design a tax code that lets families keep more of their money and lower the corporate rate" in order to spur economic growth and then spending can be cut.
© 2023 Newsmax. All rights reserved.