The tax reform bill passed by the Senate early Saturday morning may end up being the most consequential vote most senators take in their careers, Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said Sunday.
King said on CBS’ “Face The Nation” the tax reform bill was a “30-year decision” and will affect every American. However, not enough lawmakers took the vote seriously and it was impossible to know everything in the bill because not enough time was allotted to read it.
“What happens now is, we’ve now made a 30-year decision,” he said. “This may be most important vote any of us take in our career, because this isn’t the reauthorization of the FAA or even the farm bill. This is something that’s going to affect every American, every business, the whole economy, for decades.”
Senators were given the latest version of the bill at about 6 p.m. Friday before passing it just before 2 a.m. Saturday.
King said it was an inexcusably short amount of time.
“The point is nobody knew what was going on here, and there was a moment when we could have fixed it,” he said. “Chuck Schumer moved to recess Friday night about 9:00 p.m. until Monday give people chance to go through this and dig through it. Party line vote, denied. End up voting at 2:00 a.m.”
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell brushed off Democratic complaints about the process earlier in the day, but King said there’s no way Senate Republicans followed regular order in passing the bill.
“If that was regular order, I’d hate to see something else,” he said.
