Speaker Mike Johnson will allow a vote on a $78 billion business and child tax break bill, siding with corporations over a group of Republicans who objected to the package negotiated with Senate Democrats.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise officially announced the bill will come up for a vote on Wednesday. A two-thirds majority will be needed to pass it and prospects for its passage are good.
The decision to hold the vote came after a group of New York Republicans pressed Johnson for a separate vote on the state and local tax deduction cap. They briefly held up business in the house on Tuesday to make their case. Talks over the SALT cap went late into the evening in Johnson’s suite of offices.
Enactment of the tax breaks could boost the stocks of U.S. companies with large capital and domestic research expenditures.
Boeing Co., General Motors Co., Deere & Co., Caterpillar Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc. are among the companies that stand to benefit, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
The bill received a strong 40-3 bipartisan vote in the Ways and Means Committee this month and the White House backs it even though progressives wanted a more generous child tax payment.
Large support from Democrats will be needed given objections from some conservatives who say the expansion of child tax credit payments for the working poor could discourage work. Members of the hardline Freedom Caucus also say the bill would allow U.S. children of undocumented immigrants to qualify for the credit. But that is a feature of current law—signed by former President Donald Trump.
“It’s up to them if they want to go home and tell people why they voted against a lot of tax cuts,” said Oklahoma Representative Tom Cole, referring to the conservative bloc of opponents.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar said Tuesday in an interview that he expected the measure to garner strong support from his side of the aisle, adding that he planned to vote for it.
A group of mostly northeastern Republicans threatened to vote against the package because it would not raise the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction imposed under the 2017 tax law. These lawmakers pushed to amend the bill to allow a $20,000 cap. The group likely does not have the votes to sink the bill.