Hoyer Says He ‘Conceptually’ Agrees The U.S. Needs To Lower Corporate Tax Rate

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) said Thursday on CNBC that he “conceptually” agrees the U.S. needs to lower its corporate tax rate.

Hoyer’s comment came in response to a question on whether Democrats could get behind some of the major ideas in the Republican tax reform bill.

“No one is surprised you, as one of the Democratic leaders, would probably be skeptical of this bill, but let me ask you specifically about corporate tax cuts and cutting the rate,” host Tyler Mathisen said.

After mentioning that the corporate tax rate makes it difficult for the U.S. to be competitive with the rest of the world, Mathisen asked, “Do you have a problem with the idea that we need to reduce our corporate tax rate to make companies more competitive?”

“Conceptually speaking,” Mathisen added, “and I’m not asking whether it ought to be 28 percent or 22 percent.”

“Let me answer it. Conceptually, I agree on both of those items we ought to lower the corporate tax rate and we ought to provide for repatriation of dollars,” Hoyer responded.

Hoyer said it is “a shame” that Congress has not been able to accomplish either objective in a bipartisan way.

“The answer your question is, conceptually, no, we have no opposition to that,” Hoyer added.

Hoyer referenced how former President Barack Obama said in a State of the Union address that lower corporate tax rates would make the United States more competitive with the rest of the world.

“It is a shame that we are not doing this in a bipartisan fashion, because there are clearly some things on which we could agree,” Hoyer said.