President Donald Trump has promised the most comprehensive overhaul of the tax system since 1986. That was when a Republican president joined forces with a Democratic House of Representatives and a Republican Senate to lower personal income-tax rates and simplify a messy and outdated tax system.
Today, Republicans control both houses of Congress as well as the White House. Democrats agree with them that the system has once again become messy and outdated. So in theory it should be easier to reach agreement now than it was then.
Forget that theory. Passing tax reform this year will be a much tougher slog than it was 30 years ago, or than Republicans expect it to be today.
Republican opposition would have doomed President Ronald Reagan's plans without Democratic support, and the bipartisanship and skilled political leadership needed to push them through don't exist today.
Thus while a sweeping tax-reform bill is a top priority of both Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan, with a goal of passing it by July, the odds are that it won't happen. A look at what took place in 1986 helps explain why.
The architect of the 1986 tax bill was a Democratic senator, Bill Bradley, who was a relentless and effective advocate. The concept was embraced and proposed by Reagan, who delegated the responsibility for getting it through to Jim Baker, the most politically skillful Treasury secretary of modern times, and his brilliant deputy, Richard Darman, a genius at navigating the intersection of policy and politics.
On Capitol Hill, the chairmen of the two tax-writing committees surprisingly rose to the occasion. The Democratic Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski transcended his roots as a Chicago machine politician to become a national legislator. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bob Packwood stopped defending tax benefits tailored for some of the business interests he and other Republicans had faithfully championed.
The result was a comprehensive bill that slashed individual and corporate rates while compensating for the lost revenue by closing loopholes. That meant eliminating tax advantages enjoyed by powerful interest groups like the oil and real-estate industries and overcoming their formidable allies in Congress.
On the way, the 1986 tax bill nearly died on multiple occasions as lobbyists pressed their cases. Throughout almost two years of debate and negotiation, the conventional wisdom was that the proposal would not survive. It was defeated once in the House. The Senate, with Democrats and Republicans equally beholden to special interests, appeared to be a certain graveyard.
Then, as the bill reached final passage, Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole marveled that in a matter of days, it went from "immovable to unstoppable." It cleared the Senate by 97 votes to 3. A combination of will, skill and ideological flexibility made it possible.