The GOP tax bill is a done deal.
A minor technical issue (or more accurately, the Senate rules), slowed things up by about 11 hours, but the House will vote to again pass the tax bill, clearing it for the President’s signature.
Schedule today:
-The House is scheduled to vote a little after noon on the Senate-passed tax bill.
-The White House is scheduled to have a ceremony for the bill’s passage this afternoon around 3 p.m.
How it all happened:
Technical details:
The White House will not have the actual bill to sign into law by 3 p.m. today. The enrollment process takes time, as does the process of getting it signed by congressional leaders to send it to the White House. But the President will have something to sign soon — and will need to. The large majority of the tax bill takes effect in 12 days.
Did the Senate procedural snafu change anything substantive in the bill?
No. It required the stripping of two minor pieces of the legislation, and it removed the Republican-chosen title of the bill from the actual legislation. Yes, challenging the title of the bill (and winning) on budgetary grounds is both pretty funny and rather petty. But Democrats were trying to do whatever they could to lengthen the process/cause problems.
Selling the bill:
After the Senate vote last night, I asked Majority Leader Mitch McConnell if he felt, due to the polling, Republicans needed to do more to sell this bill than hope people see changes in their paychecks.
His response is what would be called in the sports world bulletin board material:
“Absolutely. We’re looking forward to it. My view of this is, if we can’t sell this to the American people, we ought to go into another line of work.”
Interesting moment on the floor early this morning:
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, delivering his scalding final speech on the bill, chastising his Republican colleagues for talking during his remarks:
“This is serious stuff. We believe you’re messing up America. You could pay attention for a couple of minutes.”