Montana’s Steve Daines, one of only two announced “no” votes on the Senate Republican tax bill, said he would support the motion to proceed to the legislation, and said his criticisms about the bill’s small business provisions had been addressed.
“I’ve seen enough progress to vote ‘yes’ to move the debate forward,” Daines said in a tweet.
[2/2] country. I’ve seen enough progress to vote yes to move the debate forward.
— Steve Daines (@SteveDaines) November 29, 2017
Daines previously had held out because, he said, the bill did not do enough to provide tax cuts to non-corporate businesses relative to big C corporations, which the bill would give a 20 percent tax rate.
[1/2] There has been some good progress for Main Street businesses in the tax cut bill. I was able to secure more than 60 billion in tax cuts for Main Street businesses. These Main Street businesses will be able to provide more jobs and higher wages in Montana and across the
— Steve Daines (@SteveDaines) November 29, 2017
Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has said that he opposes the bill as written for the same reason. After meeting with his Senate Republican colleagues Wednesday afternoon, Johnson indicated that he still hasn’t dropped his opposition, but that he was making progress toward a “yes” vote.
Leaders hoped to hold the first vote on the bill, on the motion to proceed, Wednesday afternoon.
The provision of the bill criticized by Johnson and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is a 17.4 percent deduction for business income that is passed through to owners’ individual returns, rather than being taxed at the corporate level. Many businesses constituted “pass-throughs,” a category that includes sole proprietorships, partnerships, and S corporations, are small businesses, although some are big.
The two senators had charged that the deduction wasn’t big enough to ensure that small businesses could compete with big corporations receiving the 20 percent corporate tax rate. Daines said Wednesday afternoon that he had made progress in getting the deduction increased.
“It looks like we’re going to get that rate increased to get better tax relief for pass-throughs,” he said off the Senate floor.
Adding $60 billion to the pass-through tax cut likely means that something else in the bill would have to give way. Johnson and other Republicans had been talking about limiting the ability of corporations to deduct state and local taxes.
