House panel starts work on GOP tax plan
Democrats sharpen attacks
WASHINGTON, Nov 7, (Agencies): Buffeted by seething differences, members of a key House panel are digging into work on the sweeping GOP tax plan that President Donald Trump and Republicans are counting on to protect their majorities in elections a year from now.
The Ways and Means Committee started debating the proposed legislation on Monday with nearly eight hours of heated argument and accusations. For majority Republicans, the plan would bring needed tax relief to the middle class, kick-start the lagging economy and create jobs. For the Democrats, it’s a tax-cut bounty for big corporations and the wealthy, and a ham-fisted elimination of benefits relied on by middle-class and low-income people.
Late in the day, the panel approved late changes to the bill that were proposed by its chairman, Rep Kevin Brady of Texas. The revision restored the tax exemption for employees receiving child care benefits from their companies, but also put new requirements on a tax credit used by working people of modest means.
The vote for Brady’s amendment was 24-16 along party lines. That pattern is likely to hold for votes on other possible GOP amendments through the next three days and on the panel’s passage of the bill.
The changes were the first set of revisions to a nearly-$6 trillion plan for the first major revamp of the US tax system in 30 years. Republicans aim to get the complex GOP tax legislation introduced by Thursday and through Congress and to Trump’s desk by Christmas. Trump made overhauling the tax system a campaign pledge and an economic promise.
Committee Democrats repeatedly lodged objections to the bill, especially its limits on prized deductions for homeowners and its repeal of the child adoption credit and the deduction for medical expenses.
Democrats criticized new, tighter requirements in Brady’s amendment for access to the earned income tax credit, including stricter documenting of children and their ages. They insisted it’s a valued tax break for working people of modest income that provides an incentive to remain employed.
“We’re not talking about fraud here,” insisted Rep Bill Pascrell, DNew Jersey “We’re zeroing in on fraud that doesn’t exist.”
Republicans focused on findings by Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation that the bill would lower taxes across all income levels over the next several years.
“Clearly this is helping real people. It’s helping teachers, it’s helping students, it’s helping struggling families that are living paycheck to paycheck,” said GOP Rep Erik Paulsen of Minnesota.
Democrats returned repeatedly to a section of the same analysis showing taxes would actually go up beginning in 2023 for some 38 million taxpayers, or families making $20,000 to $40,000 a year.
Meanwhile, as Republican lawmakers began revising their proposed overhaul of the US tax code, Democrats pointed to the loss of popular deductions as proof the legislation was an assault on the middle class.
A draft bill unveiled last week by Republicans in the House of Representatives, if enacted, would be the biggest restructuring of the tax system since the 1980s and the first major legislative victory of the Trump presidency.