AZ Congressional Delegation

The math gets tricky in the Senate for GOP tax bill (updated)

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There is a glimmer of hope today that The Republican tax plan,  the most unpopular bill in 30 years, is not a done deal. The math is getting tricky in the Senate.

Roll Call reports that Marco Rubio, Mike Lee Support for Tax Bill in Jeopardy:

Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, are withholding their support for the GOP tax bill in an attempt to bolster the child tax credit, a change that may be difficult amidst opposition from House Republicans.

The duo is hoping to make the credit fully refundable. The two senators, backed by top White House adviser Ivanka Trump, had previously succeeded in increasing the credit to $2,000 per child in the Senate-passed bill.

It was reduced to $1,100, only a $100 increase, by GOP conferees on their tax bill.

Should Lee and Rubio join Corker in opposing it, the bill would fail. The GOP can only afford to lose the support of two members in the event of a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Mike Pence.

“I understand this is a process of give and take, especially when there are only a couple of us fighting for it. Your leverage is lessened,” Rubio said. “But given all of the other changes they made in the tax code leading in to it, I can’t in good conscience support it unless we are able to increase the refundable portion of it. And there are ways to do it,” he continued.

A spokesman for Lee said the Utah Republican is now “undecided” on the legislation.

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A Republican lawmaker, speaking on background to discuss internal negotiations, said it was unlikely the changes sought by Rubio and Lee could be made given opposition in the House.

The Hill adds: “Making the Child Tax Credit fully refundable would cost $87 billion over 10 years — a significant amount that won’t be easy to pay for. Negotiators are already straining to cover the costs of other fixes, such as lowering the top individual tax rate to 37 percent and allowing people to deduct up to $10,000 for state and local taxes.

“The House pushed back hard on that,” the member said of the revised child tax credit in the Senate bill. “We’re pretty much done with that.”

So is Sen. Rubio a “no” vote then? As Chris Hayes cautions, “If your life depends on Marco Rubio having a spine, you are already dead.” I have to agree: Trump predicts Rubio will vote for tax plan.

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An Open Letter to John McCain: Consider Your Legacy, Senator

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Dear Senator McCain: As the Senate vote on the House-Senate conference committee tax bill approaches, we urge you to consider your legacy and ask yourself this very basic question: Do you want your last political act – your final legacy — to be one of rank hypocrisy, by all appearances motivated by the selfish desire … Read more

Ignoring bad optics, GOP conferees transfer even more wealth to their wealthy plutocrat campaign donors (Updated)

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Despite the fact that The Republican tax plan is the most unpopular bill in 30 years, GOP conferees are transfering even more wealth to their wealthy plutocrat campaign donors. Tea-Publicans simply do not care what this looks like to average Americans, they are obligated to deliver a quid pro quo to their wealthy plutocrat campaign donors. They are looting the treasury on behalf of the oligarchy.

CNBC reports, The Latest: GOP agrees to lower top tax rate for individuals:

Congressional aides say Republican negotiators have agreed to lower the top tax rate for individuals from 39.6 percent to 37 percent as the final parameters of a sweeping tax package are starting to take shape.

The agreement was confirmed by two congressional aides who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Tuesday because they were not authorized to speak publicly about private negotiations.

The tax cut could be a windfall for the wealthiest Americans. It could also provide ammunition for Democrats who complain that the tax package is a massive giveaway to corporations and the rich.

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Congressional aides say Republican negotiators have agreed to set the corporate income tax rate at 21 percent as part of last-minute negotiations on a sweeping tax package.

Both the Senate bill and the House bill would lower the corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. But negotiators agreed to bump the rate up to 21 percent to offset revenue losses from other tax breaks, said two congressional aides.

The aides spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss private negotiations.

Business and conservative groups have lobbied hard to keep the corporate rate at 20 percent.

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The #Flakesonaplane saga continues

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You may have missed this story last week. On flight to Phoenix, man with ALS pleads with Sen. Jeff Flake to vote no on tax bill:

A 33-year-old father battling ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, was flying home last week after traveling to Washington, D.C., to protest the tax bill when he came face-to-face with one of the lawmakers he most hoped to influence.

Ady Barkan and others had spent a week trying to get lawmakers’ attention and giving speeches outside their offices.

So when he heard Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake was on his American Airlines flight to Phoenix, he saw his moment.

“He is the single most important swing vote in this tax bill, and I need to tell him my story to vote against it,” he recalled in an interview with the Arizona Republic on Friday.

‘I wanted him to hear my story’

Barkan said he was a “healthy person” just a year ago. Now he lives with ALS, an incurable disease that destroys nerve cells in the body.

“I walk with a cane. I have trouble breathing, and I can’t pick my baby up,” he said in one of the videos, which were recorded and posted by Liz Jaff, a passenger he met while boarding the plane.

“I wanted him to hear my story and answer some questions and hopefully persuade him to vote against it,” Barkan told The Republic.

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GOP tax bill: the devil is in the details to derailing this terrible bill

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The House and Senate conference committee will be meeting this week to hash out the differences between the House and Senate GOP tax bills to come up with a conformed bill that still must be passed by both chambers to become law.

There is a scenario or two in which this terrible tax bill falls apart. Jim Newell writes at Slate, How the Tax Deal Could Fall Apart:

The biggest development this week was that negotiators, for the first time in the process, seriously looked at reinstating some version of the state and local income tax deduction. There appear to be two reasons for this. The first would be the sizable, and mercurial, California GOP delegation in the House. Eleven out of 14 of these members voted for the original House bill—an odd move, since one of the bill’s ambitions is to redistribute Californian wealth elsewhere. Rather than flex their leverage in the original fight, though, they put their faith in Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy to ensure it’s fixed in conference. The second reason—and the one that explains why Californians might prevail—is that they appear to have an even greater ally in this fight than McCarthy: President Trump. The Washington Post reported this week that Trump’s rich friends in New York have been bitching to him about the SALT elimination. That goes a long way.

Even a modest retention would be costly. Eliminating the deductibility of state and local income taxes is a major revenue-raiser in both the House and Senate bills. Other pay-fors that were included in both the House and Senate bills might not last in the joint negotiations as well. There is a flat-out error in the Senate bill regarding the corporate alternative minimum tax, and the Senate’s last-minute decision to keep the individual AMT is meeting resistance as well. The House bill, which more aggressively pursued deductions for graduate students and those with major medical expenses, is also expected to be tamed.

What all this means is that conference negotiators are under pressure to find some hundreds of billions of dollars in new revenue to keep the bill’s net cost within $1.5 trillion over the next decade.

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