Republicans’ top taxwriter warned Thursday night that the push for tax reform would be affected if the House fails to pass healthcare legislation Friday.
“There are serious consequences there,” Ways and Means Committee chairman Kevin Brady said at the Capitol.
Brady was speaking to reporters immediately after Trump administration officials told the House Republican conference that President Trump wanted a vote on healthcare Friday and was prepared to move on to other priorities.
“The president is done negotiating,” Brady said.
As the chairman of the Ways and Means panel, Brady is responsible for both the tax portion of the legislation meant to replace Obamacare and, separately, for ushering tax reform through the House.
In addition to the political fallout, failure on the Obamacare replacement measure would complicate the math for tax reform for House Republicans. The theory laid out by Republicans is that, by cutting hundreds of billions of dollars of taxes by repealing Obamacare tax provisions, they lower the tax baseline over the next 10 years.
That makes it easier, on paper, to do tax reform that cuts rates and raises revenues by eliminating breaks while keeping the baseline constant.
Al Weaver contributed to this report.
