‘Cheap Shot’
“This bill is going nowhere and they know it,” Representative Peter King, a New York Republican opposed to the cap on the so-called SALT deduction, said his party’s House leadership. “It’s politically bad. It’s a cheap shot at places like New York and New Jersey.”
No Democrats supported last year’s tax bill, and they’ve been critical of the second round of tax cuts since they were first discussed by Republicans.
The positive messaging Republicans wanted to develop around the tax law has repeatedly been drowned out by White House controversies and political fights. Immigration policies that separate parents and children who’ve illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexican border, and an escalating trade war against China and other U.S. trading partners, clouded a planned six-month celebration of the tax law passage this summer. Earlier, indictments and guilty pleas in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 election and Trump campaign competed with the roll-out of the legislation.
Republicans have been motivated to vote in the mid-terms, although recent surveys have shown their level of interest starting to pick up.
Tax Law Polls
The followup legislation would make permanent many provisions of the 2017 law affecting individuals and pass-through businesses, such as partnerships, including lower individual income tax rates, an expanded standard deduction, and a 20 percent deduction for pass-through companies.
House Republicans generally support extending the tax cuts, even though voters aren’t sold on the changes. Most polls show fewer than 40 percent of voters support Trump’s tax law, and an internal Republican National Committee survey obtained by Bloomberg News shows that people overwhelmingly think the law benefits corporations and the wealthy over the middle class.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady said after the vote that he was encouraged by at least minimal Democratic support for the bill. Three Democrats voted yes, against 181 who voted no. The Texas Republican said he’s confident some aspects of his tax priorities will advance in the Senate.
Two other tax bills, one expanding some retirement savings benefits and another to allow startup companies to deduct more of their costs and raise capital with fewer rules, passed the House on Thursday. The retirement bill is substantially similar to one backed by the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Finance Committee -- Ron Wyden of Oregon and Orrin Hatch of Utah -- and could be up for a vote in the Senate before the end of the year.