Republican Hopes for Rewriting Tax Code in 2017 Are Fading [View all]
Source: New York Times
WASHINGTON — Only two months ago, Republicans in Congress and President Trump’s top economic advisers were confidently predicting that a sweeping rewrite of the tax code would be in hand by summer’s end.
But with the White House consumed with constant upheaval, Congress facing the prospect of myriad investigations on top of its delayed duty to fund the government, and health care legislation still grinding through the Senate, those hopes have faded. Even with the less ambitious plan of just tax cuts — not a tax overhaul — the new mantra in Washington is “Maybe next year.”
“I think people are beginning to settle in and come to the realization that this is going to be a long ride,” said Ken Spain, a former National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman who lobbies for businesses on tax issues. “The hope was to get something done by the end of 2017, but this could slip to 2018.”
Members of Congress have quietly started to modulate their ambitions. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, said on Tuesday that passing tax cuts “this Congress” was more likely than revamping the tax code this year. Representative Kevin Brady, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, who still hopes to get something passed in 2017, has stopped publicly setting monthly goals.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/us/politics/tax-code-republicans-ryan-mcconnell.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytpolitics&smtyp=cur
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