A vote on making the individual tax cuts permanent may not happen in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested Tuesday.
“We’ll take a look at it,” McConnell said Tuesday, when pressed on whether the Senate would take up the measure this year.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said the House would vote on a measure this year to make permanent the individual rate reductions, which are set to expire in 2026. But Senate action seems to be less certain.
McConnell, R-Ky., is a staunch supporter of the tax cut bill as well as new legislation to make the individual rate reductions permanent. But the Senate would require 60 votes to pass such a measure, which means Republicans would need as many as 10 Democrats to support it.
“I’m a little skeptical about their desire here,” McConnell said of the Democrats. “But, of course, we’d like to make the individual tax cuts permanent.”
The vote to make the individual rates permanent could also be politically difficult for Republicans, however, thanks to projections showing the current cuts and making the individual cuts permanent will explode the deficit.
McConnell hedged on the matter Tuesday.
“That’s something we ought to take a look at,” McConnell said. “I don’t know why we wouldn’t want to do that.”
Republicans gave the individual cuts an expiration date to lower the cost of the bill to prevent running afoul of special Senate rules that allowed the GOP to circumvent a filibuster by the Democrats.
The corporate rate was permanently lowered to 21 percent. Democrats have seized on the expiration date for the individual cuts.
House Republicans will use the tax vote later this year to pressure Democrats closer to the midterm elections, according to Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, who said GOP leaders plan to hold a vote on the tax cuts this summer.
