Senator said he supports plan before Senate

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Rob Portman says he is supporting the tax legislation his party has coming to a Senate vote.

Portman, who was on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, took issue with Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who opposes the legislation.

“Since Nancy Pelosi talked about the tax bill can I just talk about the — middle class tax cuts are in there, “ Portman told host Chuck Todd. “The economic growth is in there, it’s an excellent opportunity for us to fix a broken tax code.”

Todd asked Portman if he acknowledged that tax rates would not go down for all income brackets under the legislation.

“Some in the middle to upper-middle class will see their total tax bill go up when you account for state and local as well,” Todd said.

Portman disagreed.

“It doubles the standard deduction up to $2,400 for a family, it doubles the child tax credit, it actually lowers the rates to the point that in Ohio the average is 2,375 bucks for the medium income family,” the senator said. “And everybody in every group, Chuck, in every bracket that group as a whole will see tax cuts and so it’s just been misrepresented and I hope people will go online and look for themselves. “

Portman told viewers to visit the website of the joint committee on taxation.

“That’s the one that’s official,” he said. “And check out what your own situation is, and you’ll see it has substantial middle class tax cuts. For a family of two making 50 grand a year, it is a 28 percent tax cut.”

Portman’s Democratic counterpart in Ohio, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown has criticized the Republican tax proposal, and said it represents “trickle down” economics, which he said favor only the wealthier income brackets.