The looming loss of the Republican seat in the Senate from Alabama adds to the pressure that party members in Congress face to ensure that their tax overhaul faces no last-minute hiccups that push the bill into next year. On Wednesday, they will look to keep the momentum going in the face of Democrats who are feeling newly emboldened.
The conference committee met and Democrats expressed displeasure
The conference committee that was created to merge the House and Senate tax bills began its one public meeting on Wednesday afternoon and Democrats immediately denounced the gathering as an exercise in trying to make the tax overhaul look transparent.
“Let’s understand what’s happening today is a sham,” said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. “Nobody ought to mistake this conference for real debate.”
Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, said the “so-called conference committee,” as he put it, “is a farce.”
Members of the committee assembled for their public session in a basement meeting room in the Capitol, and the partisan skirmishing began right at the outset.
Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, asked that the conference committee postpone its work until Doug Jones, the winner of Tuesday’s special election for Senate in Alabama, is sworn into office.
The lawmaker presiding over the meeting, Representative Kevin Brady, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said the motion was not allowed.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Representative Lloyd Doggett, Democrat of Texas, quickly clashed with Mr. Brady over his handling of the meeting, reminding him that the session was not being conducted under “Putin rules.”
Democrats also denounced the substance of the tax overhaul.
“The American people are witnessing a master class in how one political party, relying on secrecy, distortion and brute force, can muscle an unpopular, deficit exploding corporate giveaway to passage,” Mr. Wyden said. “This is the ultimate betrayal of the middle class.”
The gathering will be one of the final times that Democrats will be able to publicly criticize the tax legislation while being face-to-face with the Republicans who are crafting it. Thus far, they have largely assailed the partisan process and argued that the bill benefits the rich and corporations and doesn’t do enough to help the middle class.
For Republicans, the public meeting is largely for show, as the final negotiations happened behind closed doors and the major details have already been agreed upon. Republicans are planning to pass the bill along party lines and have so far rebuffed Democrats’ requests to change the bill.
Alabama’s election is unlikely to derail the tax bill
The odds remain strong that congressional Republicans will send a consensus tax bill to Mr. Trump, despite Democrats’ upset Senate victory in Alabama on Tuesday.
The news that Doug Jones, a Democrat, had defeated Roy Moore, a Republican, in the election immediately sent many liberal activists dreaming of another improbable win: blocking the tax bill.
Math and momentum fueled that activist optimism. Once Mr. Jones is seated in the Senate, Republicans’ majority in the chamber will narrow to a single seat. The tax bill passed the Senate on a 51-49 vote, with one Republican, Bob Corker of Tennessee, defecting. The hope among liberals was that Mr. Jones’ victory would give other Republicans pause and delay the process of reconciling the bills.
That seems unlikely to happen, however. Lawmakers have agreed on the contours of a final deal and an influential Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, said she saw no reason to wait for Mr. Jones to be seated before voting on the tax bill.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
However, Republicans still need to tread carefully and ensure they have enough support to get the bills over the finish line. If another Republican senator were then to defect — for example, Ms. Collins, who extracted concessions from party leadership in order to vote yes on the bill initially, but has watched some of those concessions go as yet unfulfilled — then the bill could stall.
Those scenarios still appear highly unlikely. Republican leaders are prepared to hold votes early next week on the measure, well before the Alabama results are expected to be certified, making Mr. Jones eligible to be seated. Party leaders remain confident Mr. Trump will sign the bill before Christmas — most likely before Mr. Jones enters the Senate.
The one wrinkle from Tuesday night, for Republicans and the bill, is that the results empower individual senators to demand even more from the leadership for their votes. Ms. Collins and Marco Rubio of Florida have both raised concerns this week about the compromise bill as it is shaping up. Party leaders may be forced to address their concerns or apply more pressure to keep them, and possibly others, in line.
But even if Republicans were to defect en masse in the Senate, the tax bill could still sail to Mr. Trump — if House Republicans were to approve the version that passed the Senate. That version included some apparent drafting errors that have upset business interests, most notably the rate of the corporate alternative minimum tax. But in a worst-case scenario, party leaders could decide that bill is better than no bill at all, and promise to return to fix the provisions later — an echo of how Democrats proceeded to pass the Affordable Care Act after they lost a similarly stunning Senate special election, in Massachusetts, in 2010.
Photo
Senator Susan Collins of Maine spoke with Vice President Mike Pence at the Capitol on Tuesday. Ms. Collins has watched some of the concessions for her “yes” vote on the tax bill go as yet unfulfilled. Credit
Pete Marovich for The New York Times
Democrats tell Republicans to hit pause on tax bill
Democrats are mounting a concerted, though likely fruitless, effort to get Republican leadership in the Senate to delay the tax bill vote until Mr. Jones is seated as a senator from Alabama.
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, called on Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, to “hit pause on his tax bill” after the Democratic candidate won the special election for Senate in Alabama on Tuesday.
“It would be wrong for Senate Republicans to jam through this tax bill without giving the newly elected senator from Alabama the opportunity to cast his vote,” Mr. Schumer said at a news conference at the Capitol on Wednesday morning.
Mr. Schumer drew a parallel with the election of Scott Brown, a Republican, in a special election in Massachusetts in 2010 as Democrats were trying to enact their health care overhaul.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon similarly said the bill should be delayed until Mr. Jones arrives, saying in a tweet “The people of Alabama have spoken.”
The people of Alabama have spoken. Republicans and the administration must drop their partisan attempts to rush a corporate handout through Congress until Senator-Elect Jones is sworn in. #GOPTaxScam
Mr. Trump hosted Republican lawmakers working on tax legislation for lunch at the White House. Flanked by Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, Mr. Trump gave brief remarks on the tax plan.
“We’re very close to getting it done, we’re very close to voting,” he said.
The White House on Wednesday released a name of those dining with Mr. Trump, including Vice President Mike Pence, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, eight Republican senators and Representative Kevin Brady, Republican of Texas and chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.
Democrats make a last-ditch effort to pressure Republicans
Ahead of the Conference Committee meeting, Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee will be joined by House Democratic leaders for a noon “forum” on the Republican tax legislation.
House Democrats have invited economists including Mark Zandi, of Moody’s Analytics, and Jason Furman, former chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, to participate.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who has come under attack from Democrats for using “fake math” to defend the Republican tax plan, was also invited. He is not expected to attend.
Progressive groups hold protests in the Capitol
Liberal activists are planning to fan across the Capitol on Wednesday to try to flip Republican members of Congress who they think could be persuaded to change their minds on the tax bill.
Members of Housing Works, the Center for Popular Democracy, Women’s March, Hedge Clippers, People for Bernie, Strong Economy for All Coalition are planning to stage sit-ins at the offices of Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain of Arizona.
Ady Barkan, a progressive activist with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis who confronted Mr. Flake on an airplane last week, is headlining the rally. According to one of its organizers, he is also hoping to have a meeting with Ms. Collins.
#FlakesonAPlane Ady talks to Jeff Flake about the #GOPTaxScamVideo by Shawn Sebastian
Democrats warned Wednesday that Republican plans to speed ahead with plans to revamp the nation’s tax code could spell more electoral trouble for President Trump and his party next year — especially with young people and suburban families.
Just hours after Republicans suffered a humiliating defeat in a special U.S. Senate election in the GOP stronghold of Alabama, party leaders unveiled a compromise on a sweeping $1.5 trillion tax plan that will significantly lower corporate interest rates and slash taxes for upper-income households.
But Democrats — now able to tout recent electoral victories in deep-blue New Jersey, swing state Virginia and Republican-leaning Alabama that all showed signs of voter discontent with GOP policies — called on Republicans to wait to vote on their tax plan until Democrat Doug Jones, the winner of the Alabama race, arrives in Washington.
Mired in the minority and sapped of any control of Capitol Hill, Democrats crowed about the implications of the Alabama contest, touting how the party’s base — young people, black women and suburbanites — turned out at higher rates than normal in off-year elections. Jones also cut in to Republican advantages in counties that overwhelmingly backed Trump in last year’s presidential election.
If the Republicans move ahead with their plans to rush tax reform, “there will be many more Alabamas in 2018,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. “Many more.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) speak before the House-Senate Conference on tax reform starts on Dec. 13, 2017, on Capitol Hill. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)
“The suburbs are swinging back to us,” he told reporters, adding that the GOP tax plan is “an anti-suburban tax bill” because it would reduce how much homeowners can deduct in state and local taxes.
Republicans, however, ignored the Democrats and said they did not expect any slowdown the tax push, citing a Christmas deadline for action that had been set months in advance.
“We are moving ahead as we always have been on the same timeline we’ve been talking about for months,” said Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), a member of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, added that he sees no need for a delay, because “The people back home want to get it done, now.”
The House and Senate are poised to vote on the GOP tax plan by the end of next week.
When exactly Jones will join the Senate remains unclear. Alabama’s secretary of state, the state’s senior elections official, said Tuesday that the soonest the election will be certified is Dec. 26 or 27. The Senate’s holiday break is scheduled to begin Dec. 22, and senators are not expected to return until Jan. 3, although that schedule could change.
Calls to slow down the tax reform plan are only the most immediate consequences of Jones’s unlikely victory, which came against GOP nominee Roy Moore. Many Republicans, including McConnell, abandoned Moore’s campaign after The Washington Post published a woman’s allegations that Moore had sexually assaulted her three decades ago, when she was 14 and he was in his 30s.
Jones’s seating will cut the Republican majority in the Senate from two votes to one, making it even harder to move the GOP legislative agenda forward without some bipartisan cooperation. Possible efforts to cut back entitlement programs or replace current health-care policy with a more conservative alternative — already difficult — could be impossible in a Senate divided 51 to 49.
Some veteran Democrats played down the notion that Jones could scramble the Senate’s political dynamics in a significant way, citing his lack of a voting record that would indicate that he is a reliable supporter of the Democratic agenda and pressures he may face from his conservative state.
“I don’t know what he wants to do, and he’ll have to decide what he wants to do,” Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the Senate’s longest serving member, said. But, he added, the mere presence of Jones could shape the way Republicans and the White House craft their priorities for the coming year.
During the campaign, Jones ran as a centrist, and in his victory speech, he spoke of the need for politicians in Washington to find “common ground.”
Schumer conceded that he doesn’t know whether Jones would back the GOP tax plan, saying, “He will make a decision based on what he believes is best for the people of Alabama.”
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who has become friendly with Trump and frequently plays golf with him, said he has spoken to the president in recent weeks about working on bipartisan deals next year and expects more willingness to reach out to Democrats after a year of focusing on GOP concerns.
“In terms of base politics, he’s done a lot — regulatory reform, [Supreme Court Justice Neil] Gorsuch, the tax cut. In the bipartisan portfolio, there’s not a whole lot in it,” Graham said. “There needs to be both. He gets it. Infrastructure is a bipartisan project, immigration is bipartisan.”
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W. Va.), a key moderate Democrat who stands to see his clout build in a closely-divided chamber, also urged Trump and Republicans to seek new ways to work with Democrats.
“Every time I’ve been around the president I’ve always felt he’s more comfortable working on something bipartisan than on something partisan,” he said in an interview. “The push he’s getting from his party — is it’s all for the base, boom boom boom.”
In calling for a delay in the tax debate, Democrats pointed to their party’s decision to slow down controversial health-care legislation in 2010 — after a Republican, Scott Brown, won a special election to fill the Senate seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy in liberal Massachusetts.
“The result was just as shocking to Democrats as [Tuesday] night’s result was to Republicans,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Calif.) said in a floor speech recalling how Democrats delayed their health-care votes. She came to the Senate after defeating Brown in 2012.
Warren and other Democrats cited comments McConnell made in January 2010 in the immediate aftermath of Brown’s win, calling on Democrats to slow down passage of the Affordable Care Act until he was sworn in.
“I think the message of the moment is that the American people, all across the country, are asking us, even in the most liberal state, Massachusetts, to stop this health-care bill,” McConnell said the day after Brown was elected.
But Brown’s 2010 victory was rooted in an election that became a national referendum on health-care reform — and Democrats needed to wait to pass some of the legislation enacting the Affordable Care Act because they did not have the 60 votes necessary to move forward at the time after then-Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) called for a slowdown. Although the Massachusetts election was squarely focused on the Democratic health-care bill, the Republican tax bill was only an ancillary issue in an Alabama election that was more squarely focused as a referendum on Moore’s character.
Ultimately, Democrats ended up using special procedures to pass the health-care bill without Brown’s vote — the same “reconciliation” rules Republicans are now using to pass the tax bill along party lines.
Publicly, Democrats cite the need to wait for Jones as a reason to slow debate on tax reform. But they also know that a delay could help build opposition — just as the summerlong fight among Republicans over how to repeal the ACA derailed as closer scrutiny sparked broad public opposition.
For moderate Democrats like Manchin facing reelection in 2018 in states that Trump won handily last year, waiting might give them more time to rewrite the tax plan.
“There’s no economic meltdown. The stock market’s doing fine. There are 17 Democrats who are ready to work on a bipartisan tax bill if they slow things down,” Manchin said.
Manchin and at least 16 other members of the Senate Democratic caucus have tried at various points to work with Republicans on tax reform. But they have rebuffed pressure from Trump, McConnelll and other Republicans to support the tax plan given its generous tax cuts for high earners and the repeal of the ACA’s mandate requiring individuals to purchase health insurance.
Earlier this month, the Senate passed the GOP tax plan by a single-vote margin, 51 to 49. Had Jones been seated then, however, Republicans still would have been able to pass the measure, albeit with Vice President Pence casting the tiebreaking vote.
Democrats are hoping that at least two Republican senators will move away from supporting the fast-moving legislation in the coming days, forcing GOP leaders to pull back. As of Wednesday, a handful of Republican senators, including Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.), had not yet signed on to the new compromise.
Erica Werner and David Weigel contributed to this report.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) speak before the House-Senate Conference on tax reform starts on Dec. 13, 2017, on Capitol Hill. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)