Koch-backed group launches six-figure campaign for tax reform

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) on Friday announced that it is launching a six-figure advertising effort urging lawmakers to pass tax reform.

The effort calls for reform that lowers rates, reduces the number of tax brackets and eliminates preferences for special interests.

The ads encourage the public to tell lawmakers to “support AFP’s plan to un-rig the economy!” The ads will appear on digital platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, a spokesman for the free-market group said.

The ads are part of a broad multimillion-dollar effort on tax reform running across a network of advocacy groups backed by billionaire GOP donors Charles and David Koch. The groups want tax reform that follows five principles: efficiency, simplicity, equitability, predictability and a lack of new burdens on taxpayers.

{mosads}The first wave of ads will target 18 House members, including Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas), as well as Reps. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), Erik Paulsen (R-Minn.) and Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), all panel members. Brady and Roskam are members of the tax-writing panel’s leadership. Roskam, Paulsen and Curbelo are also being targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 2018 midterm elections.

AFP has been active in opposing the border-adjustment proposal that is part of the tax plan House Republicans released last year.

But the group’s president, Tim Phillips, said the new campaign is about more than just opposition to that proposal and is also about the concepts that should be included in a tax bill. He said he hopes the ads give lawmakers an added impetus to act quickly on tax reform.

“We’re hoping to see faster progress,” Phillips said in an interview with The Hill.