Mulvaney: GOP House to adopt Senate budget plan, speed tax reform nearly two weeks

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Mick Mulvaney on navigating hurdles ahead for tax reform

White House budget director weighs in on 'Fox News Sunday.'

White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said Sunday he expects the House to adopt the Senate’s recently passed budget plan — a significant and timesaving effort toward fulfilling President Donald Trump’s mandate for the GOP-led Congress to pass tax reform legislation by as early as Thanksgiving.

“We may save as many as 10 or 12 legislative days,” Mulvaney told “Fox News Sunday.” “In the congressional calendar that’s a long time. And it really does buy us some time and opportunity to get this done before the end of year.”

Such a process would be faster than essentially trying to negotiate separate House and Senate bills.

Trump told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo” that he wants a tax-reform bill on his desk by year’s end and suggested Congress should stay over the Thanksgiving and/or Christmas break to get the job done.

He also told Fox News last week: “I want to get it by the end of the year, and I’d be very disappointed if it took that long.”

To be sure, Trump is eager for a major legislative win in his first year in the White House, after the Senate has failed several times to repeal and replace ObamaCare, and allow him to fulfill a major campaign promise.

Mulvaney also made clear Trump’s “two priorities” on tax reform — he wants to lower the corporate tax rate as well as to have a plan that simplifies the tax code for middle-class Americans resulting in them paying less.

“Those two things are sort of the foundation for tax plan for the president,” Mulvaney said.

He also acknowledged that the Trump White House would like the corporate tax rate to be 20 percent, down 35 percent, but was noncommittal about how much the president was willing to negotiate on that point.

“I don’t think that the House really wants to negotiate (either priority) that much,” he said.