House Ways and Means Committee members are preparing for a hot debate and vote Thursday on a new round tax reforms, including making permanent President Donald Trump’s tax cuts.

“From my perspective, anyone who looks at what we’re trying to do and says I don’t think this is the right type of policy for the American people, you’d have to question either their truthfulness or their depth of knowledge about what we’re trying to do,” committee member Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa., pictured above) told LifeZette.

Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act 0f 2017 lowered individual rates and simplified the tax code when it was passed last December.

It also lowered the corporate tax rate permanently from a maximum of 35 percent to 21 percent.

But there were still policy goals supporters of the legislation were unable to achieve, so the committee’s Tax Reform 2.0 proposal — which includes three separate measures combined into one — addresses some of those lingering issues, such as making the individual tax cuts permanent.

Related: Trump to Seek More Tax Cuts

The committee will debate the proposal during a markup session that is likely to be followed by a vote Thursday. Kelly said he will go into the markup armed with facts and the moral argument that these reforms have already helped people, in case anyone tries to claim otherwise.

“From my standpoint, where I’m sitting, because I will be in that room, if those types of questions come up or those claims come up, I want to nip them in the bud as early as I can and say, ‘Isn’t it about time we did the right things for the right reasons because good things are happening?'” Kelly said.

Trump was elected in 2016 promising to grow the economy by reducing taxes, deregulating business, and reworking international trade deals. The economic growth rate hit 4.2 percent in the second quarter of 2018, even as more people are entering the workforce, unemployment is at record low levels, and the stock market is enjoying massive gains.

But House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats have argued the legislation passed last year helped the wealthy while providing only “crumbs” for everybody else. Tax Reform 2.0 is more focused on individuals and families but has received similar complaints.

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Kelly thinks Pelosi and other critics have put themselves in a difficult position. Democrats rallied hard against the tax cuts last year, with none of them voting for the legislation. So now, acknowledging that things have gotten better would be like admitting that they blew it the first time around.

“They’re going to have a hard time defending that,” Kelly said. “But once you bet on that path and keep restating it, it’s not like they said it once and then said maybe I was wrong, they just keep restating that.”

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) released a framework for the plan as a guideline for committee members July 24. Republicans on the committee eventually released a package of three bills September 10. Kelly introduced one of the bills, which focuses on amending the tax code to encourage retirement and family savings.

Republicans have also been able to point to the hundreds of companies that have raised wages, given employees bonuses, and invested in new facilities since the first round of tax reforms were passed.

Related: The Crumbs Chronicles: Bonus from the Trump Tax Plan Brings a Family Together

“It’s going to be awfully hard for Democrats to say this isn’t working for America,” Kelly said. “And if they say those things, my only response to them would be, you got to get home, you need to get on the ground, and you need to talk with people face to face in their place to find out how this is really working.”

“We’ll get it voted on, and then we’ll go to conference with the Senate.”

Kelly said people across the country are tired of watching Washington’s theatrics such as Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, which quickly went off the rails. Kelly believes people deserve better from their elected representatives and hopes the markup session will go better.

“What we’re trying to do is get in conference with the Senate,” Kelly said. “That’s when things are really going to start to turn, and we start to work towards an end. We’ll get this through tomorrow — we’ll get it through our committee. We’ll get it voted on, and then we’ll go to conference with the Senate.”