Posted on 11/07/2017 7:56:57 AM PST by SeekAndFind
I don’t want to say I told you so, but … you know. After taking a look at the House Republican version of tax reform, their counterparts in the Senate plan to basically ignore it and write their own version. Six Senate Republicans have expressed serious reservations about the direction and details of the plan, which prompts questions again about GOP preparation for another major agenda item.
And gosh, it all sounds so familiar, The Hill notes:
The House GOP tax-reform package has put Senate Republicans in a tough spot, much like the House-passed ObamaCare repeal bill did earlier this year. …
At least a half-dozen Senate Republicans have already raised concerns about various proposals in the tax measure, setting the stage for arduous negotiations in the upper chamber.
They might just skip over all the arguments over the House proposal and go directly to writing their own version:
Senate GOP leaders have assured their colleagues that the Senate Finance Committee will write its own bill and urged them to withhold judgment on the House measure.
“They’ve told us the House bill is just a shell and we’ll have our own bill. They’ve asked to hold off on commenting and to not pick it apart,” said a Republican senator summarizing the instructions that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) gave during a Thursday lunch meeting.
That takes another page from ObamaCare, but from its passage rather than the futile efforts to repeal it earlier this year. According to Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution, “all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives[.]” Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid got around that by hollowing out the House bill and passing a Senate version of the Affordable Care Act, which prompted an unsuccessful lawsuit from House Republicans over the origination clause. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
So there are lots of opportunities for déjà vu in the tax reform effort, but mainly from earlier this year. Politico predicts that even writing their own bill might prove difficult for Senate Republicans, especially given the need to meet the requirements of reconciliation:
Some of the differences will be rooted in budget constraints that bar Senate Republicans from adding to the federal debt after 10 years under the filibuster-proof process they’re following, known as reconciliation. That’s likely to be a major consideration when it comes to permanently cutting the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, as the House wants to do.
Cutting the tax that deeply comes with an estimated $1.5 trillion price tag. House Ways and Means Republicans — who will start formally working on their legislation in committee on Monday — achieved that permanent reduction with offsets that include delaying their plan to eliminate the estate tax, ending a couple of family-related tax benefits and sunsetting more generous business write-offs after five years. …
Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) have raised budget concerns, and there’s less GOP angst about the estate tax in the Senate than in the House. Both Collins and Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) have said it should remain.
In addition, Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) want to boost the child tax credit much more than the House bill does. And Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) simply appear difficult to predict.
None of this was tough to predict. The question this prompts is why House and Senate Republicans didn’t work more closely together to produce a joint effort in the first place. We will mark the one-year anniversary of the 2016 election this week, meaning that the GOP had almost exactly a full year to prepare a comprehensive tax bill that would garner enough approval within the caucus to succeed. Instead, as I noted in my column two weeks ago, it still appears that no one has quarterbacked this properly at all.
Unless all of this déjà vu comes to a sudden end soon, get ready for another disaster.
Lots of Cantorizing to do.
Alexander, Corker, Flake, Graham, Hatch, Heller, Hoeven, Murkowsky, McCain, Rubio, Gardner, Burr, Tillis, Portman, McConnell, Thune, Cornyn, Cochran, Isackson, Blunt, Johnson, Toomey, Capito, Rounds, Fischer, Collins, Wicker, Sasse, Ernst, Lankford, Young, Boozman and Shelby are all undocumented Democrats in R jerseys.
Todays GOP is basically the Republican and Democrat party rolled into one.
The Democrat party is basically a lunatic asylum.
Tax Reform passes or the Stock Market has a historical crash. And Mr. Trump’s Presidency crashes with it.
This, no doubt, is what the GOP is hoping for.
Just for once I wish we could be stabbed in the front instead of stabbed in the back.
Bull. The House and Senate did work together.
They also wrote a script for the Kabuki play of it’s passage.
The script has the Senate as the heroes who save the day.
That’s what is so familiar about this.
I predict that just before Christmas Mitch will come out with a shrug and say well we tried but we just ran out of time. They have no intention of tax reform.
We need another Boston Tea Party. These bastards are willfully ignoring the will of the people.
I sadly believe you are all too correct.
It has become as transparent as a window that the Republicans as a party do not want to implement the mandate from the American people.
Because that mandate in the end means less money and power for them.
I agree with you.
I think President Trump does, too. That’s why he scheduled a 2 week Asian trip in the middle of tax negotiations. He knows that McCain, Corker, and Flake will obstruct him just out of hatred. That’s why he knew it didn’t matter if he attacked them or not.
With those 3 not runni g again, they provide cover for the rest of the senate to pretend they are conservatives when they actually are globalists.
“Conservatism” is as dead as a hammer. We are in a new paradigm, the “Brave New World” is here.
Demographics are destiny. Ours is as a White Minority. And soon. God help us all, no one else will.
At some point the President needs to throw down the gauntlet, declare war on the obstructions, and go directly to the People for a mandate to support the agenda he was elected on in 2016. That means naming the Senator and House members who need to be replaced in 2018, whether they are R or D. Paul Ryan’s name should be on the top of the list.
Time to shut it down!
Traitors to the American people.
No tax cuts, market drops several thousand points, retirement accounts clobbered, economy slows, recession possible, Democrats take House and Senate, and Trump is neutralized.
Nice plan.
My family would pay 25% less of annual income in taxes, according to two online calculators.
Of course they are - they’d rather keep the status quo even if it means ruining their Party because they are all Dems at heart and know they have a welcoming committee for when they actually make the jump to be on the oppressors’ side....
The house has more vulnerable members who get elected more frequently. The Senators are up only every 6 years and they have their filibuster rule that will kill just about anything. Ehen it doesn’t apply they need just a few “concerned senators” for the remainder to hide behind.
You are right. It truly is theater.
They are just BEGGING for another Civil war.
33 out of 52 doesn’t offer much hope......
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