Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said Wednesday that Democrats are ready to fight with Republicans over tax reform legislation.
"This is going to be one of the biggest fights of the next three, four months, and Democrats are ready for it," Schumer told reporters on a conference call held by a left-leaning group organized to oppose tax cuts for high earners, according to the Washington Examiner.
Earlier this month, 45 of 48 Senate Democrats signed a letter to President Donald Trump and GOP leaders demanding that they not support any bill that gives new breaks to the wealthiest Americans or adds to the deficit.
Schumer warned Wednesday that if the Republican tax reform plan lowers rates for the wealthy, "the American people are going to rise up against it."
His comments came the same day that Trump is traveling to Missouri to begin a public campaign for tax reform. Trump is expected to describe his plan as a benefit to middle-class workers that will create a more favorable tax system for American businesses to compete with global competitors.
Trump is seeking a simpler tax code, including middle-class tax cuts, to push for more job creation.
But Trump's chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, said that the bulk of the responsibility is on Congress, not the president, to pass tax reform.
"At the end of the day, tax legislation has to happen in Congress and the House," Cohn told the Financial Times last week. "The Ways and Means Committee will be drafting legislation and we will be on the road and holding meetings in Washington and elsewhere explaining why it is so important to have tax reform in America."
Rep. Kevin Brady (R., Texas), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has said that Trump will play an essential role in the legislative process to overhaul the country's tax system.
"You can't do this without presidential leadership," Brady said earlier this month. "My sense of President Trump, he's all in on tax reform."