White House Considers Slashing Corporate Tax to 15 Percent; White House Denies Overnight Committee Request for Michael Flynn Documents
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the White House claims the president will unveil his tax plan tomorrow, at least some of it. We're not sure we'll get all the details, but one detail has leaked out, a corporate tax cut down to 15 percent. We're joined by CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans. That's a big cut.</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It is. Will it just be tax cuts or will it be tax reform?</s>POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.</s>ROMANS: That's what we want to know. I have a lot of questions about what this is going to look like. Is it going to be the principles the president wants to put forward or is this actually the plan? Because you know, the White House has been working on a plan for some time and some of those details the White House has been at odds with. So what is it going to look like? What we do know is that corporate taxes in the U.S. are the highest in the world. Business for years have been saying this has got to be cut. And it has to be reformed. Not just cut from 35 percent in the U.S., but reformed. So all those loopholes and special treatment of different industries are much more level. You can see the average for developed nations as much as 33 percent. You look at, you know, like Ireland, for example. It's only like 12.5 percent, which is why so many companies --</s>HARLOW: Yes. They're all going there.</s>ROMANS: -- are moving and investing there. But the effective tax rate, this is what large companies that make money in the U.S. they actually pay around 14 percent, because they use that super stupid, complicated tax code we have to find ways to lower their tax burden, and --</s>BERMAN: Is that the official name of it?</s>ROMANS: That's what</s>I -- HARLOW: The super stupid.</s>ROMANS: Yes, the super stupid. But one in five companies pay no tax. And for years, Poppy, you know covering business.</s>HARLOW: Yes.</s>ROMANS: That the most important job in an American corporation is the tax office.</s>HARLOW: Of course, of course.</s>ROMANS: You know? And earlier this morning, somebody in business e- mailed me and said look, if you're paying 35 percent and you're a big company, you just got fired, because, you know.</s>HARLOW: Yes.</s>ROMANS: Because there are ways to get around it. Now the question is, are we going to simplify it for consumers, for everyday people? What's that going to like?</s>HARLOW: Who gets hurt? Who makes up the difference? Because the Tax Policy Center comes out and says, all right, you want to do that, you want to lower it to 15 percent? In a decade, you're going to be $2.4 trillion in the hole.</s>ROMANS: Tax cuts are very expensive. $2.4 trillion definitely over 10 years. So where do you make that up? Now the Treasury Department says you're going to grow the economy so much by unleashing all of these economic activities from lower taxes that it will pay for itself. A lot of economies disagree.</s>BERMAN: You know what else is expensive? Trade wars.</s>HARLOW: Yes.</s>ROMANS: Yes.</s>BERMAN: Trade wars, very, very expensive. And we may be in this first stage -- I won't call it a war, but a trade spat.</s>HARLOW: Spat.</s>BERMAN: Spat? With Canada.</s>ROMANS: Over dairy farmers and lumberjacks. Two friends, two allies, two neighbors in a fight over dairy farmers and lumberjacks.</s>BERMAN: Sounds like a Monty Python.</s>HARLOW: It's the low Paul Bunyan.</s>ROMANS: The United States has been for years saying that Canada restricts imports of U.S. -- some kinds of U.S. milk and dairy that they use for cheese-making. And also the United States has said that Canada subsidizes its soft woods, some kinds of lumber. So you have this fight that was actually outside of NAFTA by you know -- it was never addressed really through NAFTA, and now the Commerce Department is getting tough and actually putting tariffs on Canadian wood.</s>HARLOW: The first tariff under the Trump administration, you would have guessed --</s>ROMANS: I would have said China or Mexico, for sure.</s>HARLOW: Yes. Would not be in Canada, but it is indeed. Christine Romans, thank you very much.</s>ROMANS: You're welcome.</s>HARLOW: We do have some breaking news to get to.</s>BERMAN: Yes. Let's get to Capitol Hill. Manu Raju is there. Manu Raju, our chief congressional correspondent. Manu, this deals with the House Oversight Committee, and it's -- I guess we can call it investigation into former National Security adviser Michael Flynn.</s>MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, and actually payments that he received from Russian entities and whether or not he accurately and legally disclosed some of those payments as part of his request to get security clearance to become President Trump's National Security adviser before, of course, he was dismissed from that job. Now we have just obtained a letter that the White House has sent from the -- to the House Oversight Committee from actually Mark Short, who is the assistant to the president for Director of Legislative Affairs, and they did not respond to a lot of the requests from this committee. In fact, mostly blew off the committee from a number of the things that they were looking for to determine whether or not Michael Flynn did accurately and legally disclose these Russian payments from entities including the Kremlin-backed news station, RT. Those things were not provided to the committee from the White House and the White House gives a lengthy explanation about why, saying that sort of things they do not believe are relevant to the committee's investigation, saying they can't provide certain information after January 20th, after the time the president was sworn into office, and saying that other information does not seem pertinent to the investigation, so not getting their documents. Expect that to be a line of criticism from these members who are reviewing other information that they have received from the Defense Intelligence Agency related to Michael Flynn's request for his security clearance application and other issues as well. That's going to be a concern. The White House not being responsive to this committee, particularly according to this letter that we have received from the White House to the House Oversight Committee, guys.</s>HARLOW: So, Manu, I mean, the key issue here is transparency or lack thereof, and this is a White House that touts its transparency, right? And at first blush, you've got the letter. This is a lack of exactly that. What kind of powers does this committee have? Is this a committee that would have subpoena power? Can they get these documents? Can the White House be compelled to turn all this over?</s>RAJU: They can certainly issue subpoenas. That's well within their rights to try to obtain these documents. And the White House can turn around and assert executive privilege and not provide those documents. So you might see a bit of tug-of-war between Congress and the executive branch over some of these documents. It will be interesting to hear from these leaders of the committee if that is the route that they do want to go to get documents related to this investigation and whether or not they want to actually hear from Michael Flynn publicly to discuss his disclosure or lack thereof, of some of these payments to the executive branch. So expect this fight to occur between the White House and Congress over documents related to this investigation now focusing on Michael Flynn from this oversight committee. Of course, there's a separate House and Senate Intelligence Committee that's looking into a larger issue of Russian meddling and Michael Flynn at the center of that investigation as well, guys.</s>BERMAN: You know, one crucial point, Michael Flynn doesn't work for the White House anymore.</s>HARLOW: No, and remember, he said he has a story to tell.</s>BERMAN: He has a story to tell. So this is fascinating to see how he reacts to Congress and Congress reacts to him and how much the White House is willing to get involved. Manu Raju for us on Capitol Hill. Again we are waiting to hear from the House Oversight Committee. We might get some answers to that question, what do they intend to do with the former National Security adviser going forward? Stay with us.