Senate leaders remain wary on tax reform

{mosads}Reid praised Baucus as “trying to do what’s good for the country,” but added that “there are a lot of issues” to be tackled in any effort to overhaul the tax code.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) hit a more dour note, saying that Democratic demands that tax reform boost revenue to the government could make it a nonstarter with the GOP.

“The dilemma we have here is that the president and a significant number of Senate Finance Committee Democrats have indicated this is mostly about raising revenue,” he said. “I don’t see how we get anywhere, candidly…that’s a stumbling block to even getting started.”

The fight over raising revenue versus revenue neutral tax reform remains a key point to be settled if the two parties are to craft a tax reform agreement. Both parties agree on the need to redo the tax code, but McConnell noted that the last major overhaul in 1986 was crafted with a revenue neutral goal at the outset.

“The point of this ought to be to make our country more competitive, not to give the government even more revenue,” he said.

Baucus and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) have been working for months to build support for comprehensive tax reform. On Monday, they visited businesses in Minneapolis to make the case outside Washington.