Iowa couple to join Trump for closing arguments for GOP tax plan

An Iowa family will join President Donald Trump as he makes his closing arguments for passage of the GOP tax reform plan.

Aubyn and Anthony Giampolo of Johnston and four other families will be a White House briefing Wednesday afternoon.

The Giampolos, who both work for the West Des Moines Police Department, and the other families were chosen to 'ensure that the group visiting tomorrow would be a good representation of the families around the country that stand to benefit from tax reform,” according a member of the White House press office.

According to senior White House officials, the president will use their stories and specific tax situations to explain the benefits for middle-class taxpayers of 'historic, transformative tax reform” he hopes to sign into law before the end of the year.

'This is a great opportunity for the American people to see middle-class families who have similar situations to their own and see how the plan is going to benefit them,” Cliff Sims said on a Tuesday call with reporters.

The president is expected to make an aspirational argument for tax reform to young people he has invited to the White House for his speech.

'These are the folks who are, for perhaps the first time in American history, (their) parents no longer think their children will be better off than they are,” Sims said. 'We're going to reverse that. We're going to make it where the kids in that audience know they're going to have an opportunity to grow up and live the life they want to live ... (and parents) are going to know the next generation will have the opportunity to be more prosperous.”

Anthony Giampolo has been in law enforcement since 1997, the past four years as a sergeant with the West Des Moines Police Department. He said he and his wife, a dispatch supervisor since 2003, were making the trip on their own time and were not representing the department, which would be a violation of city policy.

Both the Gianpolos hold master of public administration degrees from Drake University. Three of the couple's four children are expected to be with them at the White House.

Members of the House and Senate are working toward resolving differences in the $1.5 trillion tax overhaul package that passed the House on Nov. 16 and the Senate on Dec. 2.

The impact of the changes are in dispute, with the GOP pointing to analyses by the Tax Policy Center that estimated it will reduce taxes, on average, for every income group, and another by the Tax Foundation, an independent think tank that projects that over the next 10 years the corporate tax cuts could lead to almost 1 million new jobs.

Democrats and their allies, however, say the bill will hurt the middle class, benefit the wealthy and create loopholes for corporations and the rich to exploit.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, called the bill 'no more than a thinly veiled attempt by the Trump administration to cover up an economic agenda that showers corporations with goodies while taking money and health care away from those who need it most.”

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