No victory dance yet for Trump after House passes tax bill
When the GOP
House voted to repeal Obamacare in May, President
Donald Trump invited supporters to the Rose Garden to celebrate with him and to pat themselves on the back for making history in record time.
Thursday, when Republicans passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act there was no talk of orchestrating a public victory lap.
In the fall of his first year in office, Trump has come to understand that passing the halfway mark is no guarantee you’ll cross the finish line.
Yes, there are 52 Republicans in the Senate — as well as a GOP vice president who can break a 50-50 tie vote.
Yet it took only three dissenting Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky and John McCain of Arizona — to announce their opposition to a Senate bill before Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided not to bring it to the floor in September.
This go round, Trump is wiser to the ways of the swamp.
“Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated,” Trump marveled in February — to the delight of his entrenched critics. On tax policy, on the other hand, Trump pretty much refrained from oddball assessments. When it comes to matters of the wallet, Trump has a long personal history.
Another difference: Mark Harkins, senior fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University, noted that Trump has refrained from lashing out at reluctant Republicans as he did on health care.
Already Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., has let his dissatisfaction with the current Senate tax bill be known. As Harkins sees it, that means Trump probably cannot afford to lose the votes of the two Senate Republicans whom he has savaged most mercilessly — McCain and Bob Corker of Tennessee.
“If you’re a member of Congress, the last time you went to the White House to celebrate a bill signing, a week later your bill was being pilloried by the president,” Harkins recalled. Trump did not help himself on Capitol Hill when shortly after the House passed its Obamacare makeover bill, the president called it “mean.” Who wants to go out on a limb with that guy?
The Trump White House worked harder to promote tax reform and did a better
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