House Speaker Paul Ryan said he thinks his chamber will pass a GOP-backed tax reform plan by Thanksgiving and the Senate will follow about a week later, keeping with President Trump’s timetable to give Americans a “big beautiful Christmas present.”

“We’re on track for moving this through the House before Thanksgiving. That’s our plan,” Ryan said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

“I think our members are very excited about this. We’re pleased with what we’ve rolled out, and this is what we said we would do when we ran for office in 2016,” the Wisconsin Republican said. “We expect our friends in the Senate to be about a week behind us.”

He also defended the plan against criticism that it would add $1.5 trillion to the deficit by saying it will jump start the economy and create jobs.

“Paul Ryan Deficit Hawk is also a growth advocate. Paul Ryan Deficit Hawk also knows that you have to have a faster growing economy, more jobs, bigger take home pay, that means higher tax revenues,” he said.

But Fox host Chris Wallace pressed him on estimates that the plan would add $1.5 trillion to the deficit.

“The reason we did it that way is because, we believed that the Senate parliamentarian won’t let us use what we call dynamic scoring,” Ryan explained.

“Let me just get you right there. You’re going to say this is a $1.5 trillion dollar tax cut – we are, we are convinced that this is going to give us faster economic growth. I’m not saying every tax cut pays for itself,” he continued.

Republicans unveiled their sweeping reform plan last week that cuts the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, lowers the tax brackets from seven to four and increases the standard deductions.

But it also contains some controversial changes – including eliminating the deduction for local and state taxes that has lawmakers in high-tax states like New York and New Jersey up in arms and reducing the mortgage interest deduction – that could jeopardize the legislation.

President Trump urged Congress to pass the reforms by Christmas so Americans would get “a big beautiful Christmas present.”