Senate Republicans easily passed their budget resolution which Senator Bob Corker called a "hoax," but what about House Republicans?
House Republicans are expected to adopt and pass the Senate budget resolution tomorrow, but a group of congressmen are staging a last minute revolt because the details of their tax cut bill are still up in the air.
More specifically, it's still not clear if state and local tax deductions will survive.
“I haven’t seen anything positive at all. They keep saying they’re going to take care of it. Well, the vote is tomorrow,” Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said of eliminating the SALT deduction.
King was one of two New York Republicans to vote against the initial House budget over SALT concerns, and now he’s trying to encourage other members of the delegation and affected states to vote down this budget. “To me, the only way to stop it is to stop the budget. Once that passes, that train is going down the track,” King said Wednesday, adding that there has only been general talk of a fix, but nothing specific.
“Each member has their own interest, and that’s all I’ll say,” King added. “But if we stood together, we could definitely stop this.”
To make matters more complicated, Politico Playbook (it's behind a paywall) reported this morning that Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn spoke to Republicans and explicitly said SALT deductions would be eliminated in the tax cut bill.
GARY COHN told lawmakers today that they are overreacting to the state and local tax issue, and floated a gas tax to pay for infrastructure pic.twitter.com/UIKAYrj1PW
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 25, 2017
Cohn says the deductions will be eliminated in their bill, but there is no bill yet. There is no legislative text.
You can see the dilemma here for members who just want to know what they're going to be asked to vote for. No one knows. Gary Cohn says the deductions will be eliminated, but House Republican leaders have tried to negotiate alternatives that, in some cases, may be worse. Most recently, House leaders discussed preserving deductions for property taxes while eliminating every other deduction.
I expect House Republicans will manage to advance the Senate's "hoax" resolution, but this process is only going to become more difficult going forward, not easier. If they actually reveal a tax cut bill next week, that will be just the beginning.
This is slightly unrelated, but Cohn can forget raising the gas tax to pay for infrastructure. It's a fair idea, but Republicans won't vote for it.