Crapo Joins Fox Business to Talk Taxes

Crapo Joins Fox Business to Talk Taxes

"There's a difference between a $4 trillion tax increase and $4 trillion in deficit spending."

Washington, D.C.--U.S. Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), the lead Republican of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over taxation and revenue measures, joined Larry Kudlow on Fox Business to talk about the effort to prevent a $4 trillion tax hike on American taxpayers.

Click here to watch.

On the cost to extend tax cuts:

"Under our current scoring rules, the failure to stop tax increases from happening is considered a deficit. This is a $4 trillion tax increase on Americans, two and a half trillion of which will fall on people making less than $400,000, and [opponents] are arguing that not letting taxes go up-which is what the liberals want-is going to create a deficit. That's a crazy argument.

"Barack Obama, when he faced this same question-when President Bush's tax cuts were expiring-did the same thing I'm proposing. That is to say, if you're just extending current law, we're not raising taxes or lowering taxes. To say that is a $4 trillion deficit is ridiculous.

"There is a difference between a tax increase and $4 trillion of spending, and we just have to get that message out to America."

On Washington scoring protocols:

"Under the spending protocols that we use, extending current spending does not score as a deficit. But extending current tax policy scores as a deficit. That's ridiculous."

On preventing a $4 trillion tax hike on Americans:

"We're going to have to take the bold steps of saying to the American people that we are not going to let $4 trillion of tax hikes happen and that it's not going to increase the deficit.