Nebraska Congressman Don Bacon was among the 216 house members who voted to pass budget legislation Thursday morning that the GOP hopes will open the doors to tax reform.
Bacon says without this budget being passed, the House and Senate would not have been able to work together on tax reform. "The most important thing about this budget is it's going to lead to a tax cut and tax reform bill and the House will get that done here in about a month and then the Senate will have to work on it following that."
Another part of the budget, that Bacon says is desperately needed, is an increase in defense spending. "The defense budget was cut about 22% from ten years ago til today and we've done 31 continuing resolutions that have hurt the military. Which means they didn't get their pay raises, new aircrafts weren't being built and so this budget forecasts a good budget increase, roughly ten percent."
Bacon says although the budget plan isn't perfect, but is an improvement. "This budget gives us the chance for tax reform and a tax cut. We pay the highest business taxes in the free world. We even pay higher business taxes than Communist China and we gotta get this right. We gotta be competitive again and that's what we're working towards."