Some Republican senators hate that they’re about to vote for a bill that cuts individual tax rates before raising them back in a few years.
Others hate that they might have to approve spring-loaded tax hikes if deficits increase. Some hate that large corporations would get a lower tax rate than family-owned businesses. And plenty of GOP senators hate that their once-in-generation opportunity to rewrite the tax code wouldn’t abolish the estate tax that conservatives detest.
And most of them say they’re probably going to vote for it anyway as party leaders zoom toward passage this week of a sweeping bill that continues to evolve in key areas.
Senate Republicans voted Wednesday to begin debate on a bill that would cut taxes for corporations and -- at least temporarily -- for individuals, bringing them and President Donald Trump one step closer to a signature legislative victory. But as GOP leaders push toward a vote by week’s end, this much is clear: The bill has something for pretty much every Republican senator to hate.
“The individual stuff we’re doing -- I’d just as soon throw it in the incinerator and burn it,” said Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, referring to a mix of tax cuts and tax hikes that would expire after 2025. “There are things in this bill I don’t like at all.”
The measure represents the product of rapid-fire compromises made to satisfy diverse policy demands and -- for eager tax cutters -- vexing fiscal constraints. Budget rules that prevent the legislation from contributing to long-term deficits resulted in a bill with a swath of temporary tax cuts. The White House and GOP leaders insist they’ll all be made permanent, but those are decisions for a future Congress.
Moving Target
More changes may come over the next two days as Republicans attempt to pass legislation that would affect virtually every American taxpayer’s wallet -- all within two weeks of rolling it out. It’s a moving target, testing the limits of what some lawmakers can decide to live with.
Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana declared Tuesday that he’d have to be “drunk” to vote for a so-called revenue trigger that would impose tax increases if needed -- a provision sought by Corker and other fiscally-minded Republicans in the event that the economy doesn’t grow enough to recoup the bill’s estimated $1.4 trillion revenue loss. The next day, however, Kennedy said he won’t draw “lines in the dirt.”
“I said if I voted for it, consider me drunk,” he told reporters. “And I may have to get drunk to vote for the bill.”