Trump Pushes Tax Reform in Harrisburg Speech [live stream]

President Donald Trump takes his push for tax reform to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Wednesday during which he will highlight the role that truck drivers play in the American economy.

“Truckers, from the president’s perspective, are really the lifeblood of our economy,” a senior White House official said.

Trump will speak to about 1,000 workers telling them “When your trucks are moving, America is growing. That is why my administration is taking historic steps to remove the barriers that slow you down. America first means putting American truckers first,” according to excerpts released by the White House. The president is also expected to tell the crowd that his tax reform initiative “would likely give the typical American household a $4,000 pay raise.”

The math behind the pay increase matches was White House economist Kevin Hassett said last week.

“Workers used to get a 1.1 percent raise for a 1 percent increase in corporate profits. Now the pass-through to workers is closer to 0.4 percent,” Hassett said. “Why did it change so much? Because the profits are offshore, benefiting other nations’ workers,” he added. Hassett says that he believes that by offering a onetime low tax rate to bring back those profits, it would help close the gap.

President Trump’s plan includes reducing the number of tax brackets to 3, reducing tax rates, eliminating the death and alternative minimum taxes, and encouraging companies to bring back more than $1 trillion in cash parked overseas.

“We will eliminate the penalty on returning future earnings back to the United States. And we will impose a one-time low tax on money currently parked overseas so it can be brought back home to America – where it belongs,” Trump will say in the speech.

The president has touted his tax plan at rallies and speeches in battleground states often mentioning representatives and senators that he says should be voted out if they don’t vote for reform.

The Trump administration has provided Congress with a framework for tax reform that he said should be passed by early 2018.

The speech is scheduled to begin at 5:45 pm EDT.