McConnell: I ‘Misspoke’ On No Tax Increase For Middle Class Families

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Friday that he “misspoke” when he previously claimed that “no one in the middle class is going to get a tax increase” under the Senate’s plan.

In a Friday interview with the New York Times, McConnell acknowledged that some working families would end up paying higher taxes if their bill passed, contradicting his comments from earlier this week.

“I misspoke on that,” McConnell told the newspaper. “You can’t guarantee that absolutely no one sees a tax increase, but what we are doing is targeting levels of income and looking at the average in those levels and the average will be tax relief for the average taxpayer in each of those segments.”

A Times analysis found that millions of middle-class families will see higher taxes under the bill, which disproportionately benefits corporations and the country’s wealthiest households.

Congressional Republicans are under pressure to quickly move forward with tax reform after failing to pass any major legislation this year. Several acknowledged to TPM last week that their voters would turn on them if they are unable to pass a bill.

But the House and Senate bills rolled out this week contain stark differences, and lawmakers have only a few weeks to reconcile them before the Christmas deadline that the White House has imposed for tax reform’s passage.