Senate Dems spell out conditions on bipartisan tax legislation

Senate Democrats and independents said Tuesday that upcoming legislation to rewrite the nation’s tax code should ensure the middle class doesn’t pay more and the “top 1 percent” doesn’t pay less.

In a letter to Republican leaders, including President Donald Trump, 45 of the 48 Senate Democratic caucus members said they won’t support any upcoming GOP effort to overhaul the tax system that delivers cuts to the top 1 percent or adds to the government’s $20 trillion debt.

Republicans controlling Congress are gearing up to advance their tax measure this fall, promising to lower rates on businesses and individuals, while clearing out many tax breaks and deductions.

The letter says that Democrats hope to work with Republicans to promote investment and modernize the outdated tax code, but the terms laid out by Democrats are unlikely to tempt Republicans, who are planning to use a filibuster-proof Senate procedure to advance the legislation without their help.

“Any tax reform effort should not benefit the wealthiest individuals, who have already seen outsized benefits from recent economic gains,” said the letter, authored by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and others and provided to the media.

“Tax reform cannot be a cover story for delivering tax cuts to the wealthiest.”

The contours of the GOP tax plan are fuzzy at best, but House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., says he’s not pressing for a large, deficit-financed tax measure. But keeping GOP promises for large rate cuts won’t be easy under those conditions, given the difficulty in eliminating popular deductions and tax breaks.

The most recent successful tax reform effort was in 1986 and required a bipartisan push to overcome opposition from powerful interest groups.

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., a member of the GOP leadership team, said after the collapse on health care, lawmakers need to “see if we can’t put some wins on the board and certainly tax reform, infrastructure are the kinds of things we ought to be looking at.”

GOP leaders also intend to reject another Democratic demand: advancing the measure under regular legislative procedures instead of through the planned fasttrack path.