Trump Presses Senate To Move On Tax Overhaul

Nov. 17--The Republicans' high-stakes tax overhaul is headed for a showdown in the Senate after the House's passage of a major $1.5 trillion package tweaking corporate and personal taxes, edging President Trump closer to his first major legislative victory.

"Passing this bill is the single biggest thing we can do to grow the economy, restore opportunity and help these middle-income families that are struggling," House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said yesterday after the near party-line 227-205 vote in the lower chamber.

Congress' first major tax rewrite in decades now goes to the Senate, whose finance committee is expected to report out its own bill that diverges significantly from the House version.

The Senate bill's proposed elimination of the deduction for local and state taxes has proven controversial, and an Obamacare mandate repeal -- added at Trump's urging -- could reprise Republicans' failed efforts to repeal Obamacare earlier this year.

"I don't envy Mitch McConnell in this way of losing one vote here and gaining one vote there," said Scott Ferson, a Democratic strategist and former aide to the late U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. "They are riding a thin edge in what they are trying to navigate."

Both bills are centered on a corporate tax cut, from 35 percent to 20 percent, that will be permanent. But the proposed individual tax brackets are starkly different in the two plans, and cuts will expire in eight years under the Senate's bill. The plans further diverge over how to pay for the package within rules that allow for no more than $1.5 trillion of additional deficit spending.

Ferson told the Herald the Senate's repeal of the individual mandate, aimed at making the deficit numbers add up, could be "the thing that kills it."

If the Senate passes its bill, both bodies need to agree on a final bill. The House could shoot for a quick win and pass the Senate's version. Or the House could opt to negotiate a compromise with the Senate.

Jim Manley, former aide to Sen. Kennedy, and Majority Leader Harry Reid, said passage in the Senate will be the "high-water mark" for Republicans, which puts pressure on members in the House to embrace their version.

"The first pivot point is, does the House, under pressure from Donald Trump and their billionaire class, just take what the Senate does?" Manley said. He said he expects House Republicans will choose to negotiate with the Senate, then return the final measure to both bodies for a final vote.

Shortly before the House vote, President Trump arrived on Capitol Hill to bolster Republicans determined to push the tax package through Congress despite criticism the benefits would flow mostly to corporations and the wealthy, rather than middle-class Americans.

"I love you. Go vote!" Trump told House Republicans, according to those who attended the private meeting.

A report yesterday by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation said low-income earners -- those making less than $30,000 a year -- would pay more in taxes starting in 2021 under a revised Senate Republican bill. By 2023, people with incomes between $30,000 and $40,000 also would see tax increases. All other income categories -- including those earning more than $1 million a year -- would see tax decreases through 2025, according to the report. By 2027, all income categories would face tax increases because the Senate Republican bill calls for tax cuts and other changes to the individual code to expire at the end of 2025.

Herald wire services contributed to this report.

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