House Passes Budget Blueprint, Clearing Path for Tax Overhaul
- 7 years ago
House Passes Budget Blueprint, Clearing Path for Tax Overhaul
WASHINGTON — The Republican race to overhaul the tax code broke into a sprint on Thursday, with House members narrowly clearing a budget blueprint
that would allow a tax bill to pass Congress without any Democratic votes, and Senate leaders signaling that the bill could be introduced, debated and approved in both chambers by the end of November.
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said the bill was shaping up to be “a bunch of false promises to the
middle class.” Republicans, he said, “know the details — the specifics of what they’re really about — will be hard to argue in the sunlight.”
Lawmakers and committee staff members must still resolve some of the thorniest issues before they can release a bill, including where to draw income lines for tax brackets, how high to set the top personal income tax rate and how to ensure
that major changes to the way that multinational corporations are taxed do not encourage them to shift more money overseas.
The budget measure passed over the loud protests of House members from New York and New Jersey, who worry
that the blueprint will doom the current deduction for state and local taxes — a benefit of great importance to taxpayers in their states.
Representative Kevin Brady, Republican of Texas, the chairman of the House Ways
and Means Committee, said his committee would introduce a bill on Nov. 1 and begin amending it on Nov. 6.
House Republicans were “asked to vote for a budget
that nobody believes in so that we have the chance to vote for a tax bill that nobody’s read,” Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, complained this week.
WASHINGTON — The Republican race to overhaul the tax code broke into a sprint on Thursday, with House members narrowly clearing a budget blueprint
that would allow a tax bill to pass Congress without any Democratic votes, and Senate leaders signaling that the bill could be introduced, debated and approved in both chambers by the end of November.
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said the bill was shaping up to be “a bunch of false promises to the
middle class.” Republicans, he said, “know the details — the specifics of what they’re really about — will be hard to argue in the sunlight.”
Lawmakers and committee staff members must still resolve some of the thorniest issues before they can release a bill, including where to draw income lines for tax brackets, how high to set the top personal income tax rate and how to ensure
that major changes to the way that multinational corporations are taxed do not encourage them to shift more money overseas.
The budget measure passed over the loud protests of House members from New York and New Jersey, who worry
that the blueprint will doom the current deduction for state and local taxes — a benefit of great importance to taxpayers in their states.
Representative Kevin Brady, Republican of Texas, the chairman of the House Ways
and Means Committee, said his committee would introduce a bill on Nov. 1 and begin amending it on Nov. 6.
House Republicans were “asked to vote for a budget
that nobody believes in so that we have the chance to vote for a tax bill that nobody’s read,” Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, complained this week.