The House plans to vote this week on a new round of major tax reform measures, despite opposition from vulnerable swing-district GOP lawmakers and a signal from the Senate that they won’t take up the legislation.
Republicans say they are forging ahead with a vote on tax reform 2.0, a trio of bills that would make permanent the individual tax rate reductions and other cuts President Trump signed into law in 2017.
“From a timing standpoint, we’re going to put the ball on the field and move it through the House, to the Senate,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady said.
Most in the GOP conference will have no trouble voting for another round of tax cuts and other reforms included in the package. In addition to extending individual tax cuts otherwise set to expire in 2025, the measure would expand retirement and college savings plans and give startup businesses more tax deductions.
But the vote could also further endanger Republicans running for reelection in districts with high state and local property taxes, or SALTs. The legislation would leave in place a provision in the 2017 tax reform bill that caps SALT deductions at $10,000.
House Republicans are already facing tough political headwinds with dozens of races too close to call or in blue territory, according to the non-partisan Cook Political Report.
Among the most vulnerable GOP lawmakers and Republican-held seats, 11 are in states with the highest state and local taxes, including California, New York and New Jersey.
Republicans initially weighed a modification or removal of the cap, but ultimately it ended up in the final bill.
“I would not vote for that bill on the floor,” Rep. Leonard Lance, R-N.J., told the Washington Examiner.
Lance is among a dozen House Republicans who voted against the original tax cut bill that became law in 2017.
In addition to Lance, three other GOP lawmakers who opposed to the tax cut bill represent districts in New Jersey, where state and local taxes exceeding 12 percent are among the highest in the nation.
Lance is now fighting for his political career in a hotly contested re-election bid. New polling shows he’s behind Democrat Tom Malinowski by eight points.
Lance, whose district favored Hillary Clinton by 3,800 votes in 2016 but gave him a 38,000-vote margin of victory, said while some in his district will benefit from the tax cut bill, others will be hurt by the cap on SALT deductions.
“Many will do well, but not everyone,” Lance said.
Other Republican lawmakers who voted against the first tax cut bill told the Examiner that they won’t change their vote this time around primarily because of the SALT cap.
“The SALT provision is big for me,” said Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-N.J., who is not running for re-election.
Rep. Tom MacArthur, the sole New Jersey Republican who voted for the tax cut bill, favors the new legislation despite the cap and in spite of his toss-up bid for another term.
“I’d love to see these tax cuts made permanent for the American people,” MacArthur said.
The House GOP can easily pass the new round of tax cuts thanks to a 21-vote advantage.
The original tax cut bill was approved 227-203 and many Republicans are eager to put Democrats on record when it comes to making the individual tax cuts permanent, a missing element they criticized when the original tax bill passed.
The bigger hurdle lies in the Senate.
Republican leaders have little enthusiasm for the bill because unlike the original tax cut measure that they approved using a parliamentary maneuver, the new round of tax cuts would require 60 votes for passage and isn’t even likely to win over all Republicans.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said he won’t vote for more tax cuts because it would add hundreds of millions of dollars to the deficit, a talking point also claimed by Democrats.
Senate Republicans say there is no room on the schedule to vote on tax reform prior to the November election. They’ll be tied up with passing spending bills and the suddenly complicated confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, whose approval stalled amid a decades-old claim of attempted sexual assault.
The 2017 tax cut bill, meanwhile, hasn’t resonated with voters the way the GOP had hoped.
The most recent Economist/YouGov poll released last week found only a slightly higher number of voters (33 percent) support the tax cuts compared to those who oppose them (31 percent) or have no opinion about the cuts (35 percent).
Passing a new round of cuts, House Republicans reason, would give the party a fresh talking point on the campaign trail that they can add to a list of accomplishments they tout to voters as key to the recent economic boom.
But Lance, with an eye on his own re-election bid and a reluctant Senate, sees it differently.
“It’s an exercise in futility,” he said.
