McConnell says tax bill will buoy GOP with voters
WASHINGTON — Although polls show that the tax measure nearing the finish line in Congress is unpopular, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., predicted Sunday that it will ultimately prove a political winner.
By next fall, he predicted, Americans will already be feeling the effects of the revisions in the tax code, a version of which passed the Senate early Saturday.
Senate approval has moved President Trump and the Republicans who control both houses of Congress close to being able to claim their first major legislative achievement of an era in which they control both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
“We think this will produce results, results we will certainly be able to talk to the American people about in the fall of 2018 and 2020 as well,” McConnell said on ABC’s “This Week.”
The 51-49 vote broke almost entirely along party lines, with only one Republican, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, opposing the measure. That no Democrats in either house supported it shows that they are making another calculation, McConnell acknowledged.
“They decided it was important to them politically to oppose this tax measure and take it to the American people, and we’re prepared to do that,”McConnell said. “We think the country’s been underperforming, and we believe this will get the country performing better.”
A Washington Post/ABC News poll in early November found that only one-third of Americans support the tax plan, while half oppose it. Six in 10 said the legislation’s tax cuts favor the rich.
Although the legislation has not yet made it to Trump’s desk, the battle to control the political spin around it already has been fully engaged.
“This was barely dragged across the finish line on a party line vote,” one opponent, Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “We’re going to find some really stinky stuff in here that we didn’t know.”
Republicans expressed confidence that whatever differences there are between the House and Senate versions of the legislation can be worked out without much difficulty.