President reiterates plans for big tax cuts

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump promised tax cuts Friday “which will be the biggest in the history of our country” after Senate passage late Thursday of a $4 trillion budget that lays the groundwork for Republicans’ promised tax legislation.

Republicans hope to push the first tax overhaul in three decades through Congress by year’s end, an ambitious goal that could run aground over any number of disputes.

The budget plan, which passed on a near party-line vote, includes rules that will allow Republicans to get tax legislation through the Senate without Democratic votes and without fear of a Democratic filibuster. Nonetheless, the GOP’s narrow 52-48 majority in the Senate will be difficult for leadership to navigate.

The final vote on the budget was 51-49 with deficit hawk and Paul of Kentucky the lone opposing GOP vote.

Trump insisted over Twitter on Friday that Paul would be with him in the end on taxes, and he again boasted about the potential tax cuts.

It remains to be seen whether the overhaul will add up to the biggest tax cuts ever. Trump and Republicans have only produced a ninepage framework, leaving plenty of blanks that Congress needs to fill in over the coming months on income-tax brackets and elimination of some favored deductions.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Friday on “CBS This Morning” that the GOP will add a fourth tax bracket for high-income people to the three originally proposed, but Ryan didn’t say what the tax rate would be for that bracket.

The House has passed a different budget, but House Republicans signaled they would simply accept the Senate plan to avoid any potential of delaying the tax measure.

But Republicans are split on taxes. For example, a restive faction of House Republicans from high-tax states like New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California staunchly oppose the tax plan’s proposed elimination of the federal deduction for state and local taxes. They maintain it would hurt low- to mid-income taxpayers.

Democrats were excluded from the drafting of the tax blueprint, and they continue to demand that any taxcutting plan not add to the mounting $20 trillion national debt. The newly adopted Senate budget plan provides for $1.5 trillion over 10 years in debt-financed tax cuts, busting earlier Republican pledges of strict fiscal discipline.

The government said Friday the budget deficit rose to $666 billion in the just-completed fiscal year.