U.S. Senate Republicans trim tax bill to secure needed votes

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - Senate Republicans rallied around a U.S. tax overhaul bill yesterday, with Maine moderate Susan Collins announcing her support for it after obtaining agreements for several changes, giving the sweeping legislation sufficient votes to win passage.

In a legislative push moving so fast that a final draft of the bill was still unavailable late in the afternoon, Republican leaders were planning for an evening vote. Approval would launch talks, likely next week, between the Senate and the House of Representatives on crafting a single bill.

That would then go to the White House, where President Donald Trump was expected to sign it into law before the end of the year. The House, which has already approved its own bill, was expected largely to defer to the Senate measure.

In Senate speeches, Democrats hammered the bill as a giveaway to corporations and the rich that will balloon the federal deficit, but the Democrats lacked the votes to block it.

Six Republican senators whose commitments had been in doubt announced on Friday they would back the bill: Collins, Steve Daines, Ron Johnson, Jeff Flake, James Lankford and Jerry Moran.

Republicans hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate.

Senator Bob Corker, a leading fiscal hawk who pledged early to oppose any bill that expanded the federal deficit, stood out as the lone remaining Republican dissenter.