Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan (Ohio) is going against party leaders and calling for a business friendly agenda ahead of the 2018-midterm elections.



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“To be competitive globally, we have to reduce the corporate tax rate,” Ryan told The Hill in an interview from his Youngstown, Ohio, district office. “We’re just not competitive globally because of that."Ryan, a fast-rising Democrat from industrial Ohio, is challenging Democrats to take a different approach to big business and work with corporate America to create jobs.



"We can’t just be the party of redistribution of wealth; we need to be the party of the creation of wealth in communities all over the country, not to just Silicon Valley, not just Wall Street, but all over."



The Democrat raised eyebrows on Capitol Hill last fall when he challenged Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for her seat as House Minority Leader. Ryan lost, but he hasn’t stopped calling for new blood to lead Democrats ahead of the 2018-midterm elections.



“There’s no better inside player than Nancy Pelosi and I don’t have any animosity towards her,” Ryan said. “I’m pretty clear that I’ve thought we probably need to go into '18 with a different messenger whether it was me or anybody else.”



Pelosi and Democratic leaders have been in favor of policies that cut taxes for middle-class families instead of corporations. Pelosi stuck by her party’s message in a statement released Wednesday following Trump’s speech unveiling his pro-business tax proposal.



“Instead of offering the American people a plan for real, job-creating tax reform, President Trump is pushing a billionaires-first, trickle-down tax scheme that hands out massive tax cuts to the wealthiest, at the expense of American families," Pelosi said in the statement.



Though Ryan says he’s confident Democrats can take back the House in 2018, he insists a pro-business message will be key.





“If we could figure out the big economic question, which really is how do we get wealth out of the coasts and into the industrial Midwest and start creating real jobs by the hundreds, if not by the thousands, in places like I represent that’s a game changer for me."