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