Orrin Hatch: “last week, I joined the Senate majority leader, the Speaker of the House, the chairman of the House Ways and Means…”

“last week, I joined the Senate majority leader, the Speaker of the House, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Treasury Secretary, and the Director of the National Economic Council in issuing a joint statement on tax reform. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the joint statement be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks. Since the statement's release, critics and naysayers have said quite a bit, some even going so far as to declare their opposition to the statement. That is a little odd, given that the statement is not a bill or a tax plan; it is simply a statement of agreed upon principles for tax reform. That is not to say it was insignificant. Quite the opposite, in fact. The joint statement is an important development in the overall tax reform effort for several reasons. For example, over the past several months, the favored tax reform narrative among some in the pundit class has been that Republicans are deeply divided. According to this narrative, Republicans in the Senate, the House, and the administration all have such fundamentally different views on tax reform that it will be impossible for us all to get on the same page. Some of that was, to use an outdated description, pure poppycock. When the administration puts out a framework that calls for a 15 percent corporate tax rate while the House blueprint has a 20 percent rate target, that is not really a disagreement.…”