ICYMI: Sen. Cruz Discusses Tax Cuts and Achieving a Win-Win Solution on RFS

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) appeared on Fox News’ ‘The Daily Briefing with Dana Perino,’ The Sean Hannity Radio Show, and KTRH’s Michael Berry show on Thursday and Friday. Sen. Cruz discussed his meeting with President Trump regarding the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), and highlighted his 529 amendment as well as the repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate, both of which were included in the Senate’s tax reform bill passed last weekend.

When asked by Dana Perino about his meeting with nine of his Senate colleagues at the White House regarding the RFS, Sen. Cruz discussed his efforts to find a solution for America’s refinery workers, and Midwestern farmers.

“I think it was a very positive and productive meeting,” Sen. Cruz said. “I brought a number of senators with me and we were talking about the problem that is occurring, the potentially tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of blue collar union jobs that are at risk in refineries across the country. […] This conversation was all about finding a win-win solution that saves the job of the blue-collar working class refinery workers and at the same time, that helps corn farmers sell even more corn. And I think there is a win-win solution and we had a very productive conversation moving towards that solution.” 

On the Michael Berry Show, Sen. Cruz discussed his amendment expanding 529 College Savings Plans to include K-12 elementary and secondary school tuition for public, private, religious schools, and homeschooling expenses.

“One of the big victories we had was an amendment I introduced. It was the only amendment that passed that actually added something to the bill. And it was an amendment that takes 529 College Savings plans, which you know millions of people have they are very, very popular. You probably have them for your boys, we’ve got them for Caroline and Catherine, where you can save – you put in after-tax money so it’s like a Roth IRA and then all the growth, all the earnings, all the appreciation is tax free. It is a very powerful vehicle to save for college for your kids, and grandparents like to use them as well. The amendment I introduced said, we take the existing 529 programs, you can still use them for college, but it expands those so you can also use them for K-12 education. You can use them for public school, for private school, for religious school, for parochial school, you can use them for homeschooling. $10,000 a year per child.”

When asked about the Senate’s recent passage of the tax reform bill on the Sean Hannity Show, Sen. Cruz highlighted the repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate. 

“Two months ago I began publicly calling for ending the Obamacare individual mandate as a part of tax reform. When I was doing that, it was just a handful of conservatives. We made the case vigorously both privately and publicly, this is the right thing to do. The individual mandate is an unfair IRS penalty on 6.5 million people because they cannot afford health insurance. We went from virtually nobody in the conference agreeing with us, to Friday night 51 senators voted to end the individual mandate, which is one of the worst parts of Obamacare. And to use the $338 billion that [repealing the individual mandate] saves to lower individual rates, to lower marginal rates all across the board and to double the child tax credit to $1,000 per child to $2,000 per child. It is a big, big conservative victory and two months ago nobody thought we could get it done.”

Watch Sen. Cruz’s full interviews below:

Sen. Cruz on 'The Daily Briefing with Dana Perino'

Sen. Cruz on The Sean Hannity Radio Show

Sen. Cruz on The Michael Berry Show