Politics

Republicans face ‘tough environment’ but tax reform possible, former GOP tax writer says

Camp: I'm excited we may get tax reform in general
VIDEO7:0307:03
Camp: I'm excited we may get tax reform in general

While Republicans face a "tough environment" in the wake of the failure on their health-care bill, it doesn't necessarily mean they'll have to scale back their larger tax reform efforts to just tax cuts, former House Ways and Means Chair Dave Camp told CNBC on Thursday.

"Doing a comprehensive tax reform bill, in many ways having more issues on the table, more issues at stake, is somewhat easier than trying to do a very narrow focused" tax cut, he said in an interview with "Closing Bell" on Thursday.

"If your goal is trying to grow the economy, to help create jobs and help families do better, the more that you do on the code, the more economic impact you're likely to have."

He believes Republicans will still try to pass tax reform in a comprehensive way, and if it doesn't work they will then scale back.

"I just think we're not there yet to know whether they can get the big thing done yet or not."

Camp, now a senior advisor at PwC, crafted a GOP tax plan in 2014. President Donald Trump was expected to be briefed about Camp's plan in a meeting on Thursday, according to Bloomberg.

"I'm just excited about the fact we might get tax reform in general and there's a number of different ways to do it," Camp said. "Obviously I left a plan on the shelf and they're going to take a look at it and they may use it as a backboard and take parts of it or they may decide obviously not to take parts of it."

There are a number of differences between Camp's proposal and Rep. Kevin Brady and Rep. Paul Ryan's plan, with the biggest being the current call for a border adjustment tax, which would tax imports and exempt exports.