If GOP plan raises taxes on the middle class, we won’t sign it: Mulvaney

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney discusses the GOP’s tax reform plan, which was unfurled in its entirety last Thursday, and whether it will pass amid party infighting.

As the debate over the Republican tax reform plan heats up, White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney says it is not surprising that there are disagreements, even within the Republican Party. Mulvaney told the FOX Business Network’s Neil Cavuto there’s a reason that there hasn’t been a tax bill passed since the 1980s.

“They’re hard to do, so you would expect to have a lot of disagreements on minor things,” Mulvaney said on “Cavuto: Coast to Coast.”

According to Mulvaney, tax cuts for the middle class are a priority, so if the White House’s numbers show a bill that would raise taxes on the middle class, it will not make it past the president’s desk.

“We are not going to sign something that we think raises taxes on the middle class, period, end of story.”

When Cavuto asked Mulvaney, who was a deficit hawk as a congressman from South Carolina, if the tax plan was worth disappointing those who wanted big tax cuts as well those who wanted control over the deficit, Mulvaney replied, “It’s absolutely worth it because I still am a big deficit hawk. In fact, that’s why I’m spending so much time on this tax bill and encouraging Congress to pass it.”

Mulvaney explained that the administration sees tax reform as a way to boost government revenue in order to tackle the deficit.

“We need to grow the economy, make you richer, make the middle class richer, make the poor richer so that the government also gets richer and drives up those revenues.”

When Cavuto asked about the top 1% of earners in the economy who feel they are on the losing end of the tax reform plan despite having been loyal supporters of the president’s policies, Mulvaney responded, “When I go on your network, folks accuse me of raising taxes on the rich…I go on other networks, in fact just about any other network, and they accuse us of cutting taxes dramatically on the rich, it sounds like we’re right in the center.”