The House of Representatives voted Tuesday afternoon to pass the final version of the Republican tax reform package, clearing the first hurdle in President Donald Trump’s plan to sign the landmark legislation into law by the end of the week. The package passed by a near party-line vote of 227-203, with 12 Republicans from high-tax states like Illinois and New York voting against it and two Democrats
The House of Representatives voted Tuesday afternoon to pass the final version of the Republican tax reform package, clearing the first hurdle in President Donald Trump’s plan to sign the landmark legislation into law by the end of the week.
The package passed by a near party-line vote of 227-203, with 12 Republicans from high-tax states like Illinois and New York voting against it and two Democrats abstaining.
House Speaker Paul Ryan took a victory lap from the House floor before the vote took place, saying that the bill would “give the people of this country their money back.”
“Our tax code is so broken that it undermines the very things that make our nation so exceptional,” Ryan said. “Economic growth and job creation will not solve all of our problems, but they will make our problems easier to solve.”
President Trump tweeted his congratulations soon after the vote ended.
The reform package slashes the corporate rate to 21 percent and lowers individual tax rates for most brackets, with independent estimates showing that more than 80 percent of Americans would see tax savings immediately. In order to squeeze in under the $1.5 trillion price tag budgeted for the bill, many of the individual cuts are set to sunset in 10 years, although Republicans argue a future Congress would vote to extend them. They also insist that resulting economic growth will help to counterbalance the hit to the deficit, with a possible lift from spending cuts they hope to implement in 2018.
Democrats, meanwhile, have panned the bill as a cash grab for Republicans looking to please big-money donors and even themselves. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who earlier this month called the package “the worst bill in the history of the United States Congress,” savaged the vote Tuesday, tweeting that “Republicans were cheering against the children as they rob from their future and ransack the middle class to reward the rich.”
The Senate will vote on the tax reform package late Tuesday night. It is expected to pass, although the absence of Sen. John McCain, who is home in Arizona undergoing cancer treatment, may force a tiebreaking vote from Vice President Mike Pence.
