Simply Politics & News

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Senate Republicans Are Scrambling to Rewrite Their Tax Bill After a Mini-Rebellion
GOP leaders are trying to slice $350 billion from the bill to appease deficit hawks.

Senate Republicans learned Thursday evening that they have a $350 billion problem. The news came as senators congregated on the chamber’s floor for a procedural vote, and led to a tense intra-party showdown that left Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) visibly sullen. The revenue trigger Republicans had planned to include in their tax bill violates the chamber’s procedural rules and will have to be scrapped at the last minute—threatening support from a cohort of Republicans concerned about the massive hole the GOP’s tax cuts would blow into the national debt.

The verdict from Elizabeth MacDonough, the usually obscure Senate parliamentarian, came amidst what should have been a hopeless move by Democrats to send the tax bill off the Senate floor and back to the finance committee. Instead, the vote locked at 48 in favor of slowing down, and 49 against, as Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) refused to keep the bill moving forward.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/11/almost-as-if-republican-tax-plan-is-written-for-the-rich/