Senate Republicans on Wednesday voted to enter into a conference committee with the House to iron out differences between the two chambers’ $1.4 trillion tax-cut packages, taking the next step in the GOP’s push to get a bill to President Trump’s desk by year’s end.
Senate Republicans on Wednesday voted to enter into a conference committee with the House to iron out differences between the two chambers’ $1.4 trillion tax-cut packages, taking the next step in the GOP’s push to get a bill to President Trump’s desk by year’s end.
The Senate voted 51-47 to go to conference, after the House voted to do so earlier in the week.
“This has been a yearslong process to deliver tax reform. We have come a long way, and we still have more work ahead of us,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The Senate passed its tax package early Saturday, and the House did so last month.
Both the House and Senate plans slash the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, trim rates for individuals, and ax various exemptions and deductions while expanding others.
But there are still significant differences that need to be ironed out.
“There are things that I like better in the Senate bill, there are things that I like better in the House bill,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday. “I think when they come out, we’ll have some new additions and we’ll have the best of each.”
Among other things, the Senate ’s bill includes a repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate, while the House’s does not.
Lawmakers are also working through how much of the state and local tax deduction to restore, after putting the entire break on the chopping block earlier in the process.
Both the House and Senate plans preserve a local property tax deduction with a $10,000 cap, but lawmakers are talking about a change that would allow taxpayers to choose between applying the deduction to property taxes or income taxes.
“That sounds like a kind of reasonable idea,” Mr. McConnell told radio host Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday.
But that could also boost the price tag of the overall package as well. In addition to a $1.5 trillion cost limit, the final product can’t increase federal deficits in the long run under fast-track rules Republicans are using that allow them to bypass a filibuster and pass a bill with a simple majority.
“It’ll have to be revenue neutral in the end,” Mr. McConnell said. “And every time you make an adjustment in one area, you have to adjust some other area.”
Democrats, meanwhile, have cast the plans as a giveaway to the rich and say Republicans are rushing to finish before people can figure out what’s in the legislation.
“There is no telling what swamp creatures have crawled up to Capitol Hill to get their fingers on this bill at the 11th hour,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.
