Portman has political stake in overhaul

WASHINGTON — It has been difficult to miss Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio the past few days: appearing on CBS Morning News or Fox Business News to talk about overhauling the tax code, or having breakfast in the Senate dining room with Republican Sen. Susan Collins in an effort to win her vote for the tax bill.

With Senate approval Saturday morning of the most sweeping changes in the federal tax code since 1986, Portman has moved one step closer to a goal he has talked about relentlessly since he ran for the statewide office in 2010.

Few lawmakers have more at stake in the bill. If overhauling the tax code sparks an economic boom, Portman will emerge as one of the Republicans who will receive credit nationwide for making the tax bill a reality.

“I think there will be significant economic growth that will come from this,” Portman said in an interview Thursday. “The bill isn’t perfect, but I worked to improve it.”

But if budget analysts and skeptical economists are correct, and the bill does not jolt the economy while adding more than a trillion dollars to the nation’s publicly held debt, then Portman risks a backlash from angry voters.

Taxpayers in Ohio will know that Portman had a hand in scrapping state and local tax deductions that millions of Americans rely on to lower their tax bill. And those living in such tony suburbs such as Shaker Heights or Upper Arlington might not be happy when they discover that Portman’s approach also capped the deduction for real estate taxes at $10,000 a year.

“He takes a hit on this, along with the rest of the Republicans in Congress and the president,” said David Leland, a state representative from Columbus who is a former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. “They own this tax cut for the extremely wealthy — lock, stock and barrel.”

Portman’s visible and

aggressive role has been a departure from his customary risk-averse style. He often focuses on issues that have broad appeal. During his re-election campaign last year, Portman emphasized stepping up efforts to combat opioids and other addictive drugs.

“Doing any big public policy exposes you to some risk,” said Jeff Sadosky, a former Portman adviser who is now a media consultant in Washington. But, Sadosky said, “voters send leaders to Washington to work to make things better, not just to sit on their hands because of the potential of risk.”

“Reforming an outdated tax code was at the core of a Portman jobs plan that goes back now eight years when he began running for the Senate,” said Sadosky. “From that moment on, he has been an outspoken leader on the issue. It shouldn’t be a surprise he plays a leadership role in the Senate Republican caucus on this issue.”

There are still obstacles in Portman’s path. The House and Senate must reconcile differences in their separate versions of the tax bill before it can be signed into law by President Donald Trump.

Portman always was expected to play a major role in the tax bill. He knows the numbers, in part because he was the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush.

Shortly after the 2016 presidential election, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, tapped Portman to head a small group of GOP senators to develop a tax bill. Starting last December, they not only met with each other and House Republicans such as Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, but they also dealt with key members of the Trump administration, including Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Gary Cohn, a Cleveland native who is now director of the White House National Economic Council.

At one point, according to sources, Portman suggested that the Senate bill have seven individual tax brackets, as opposed to the four in the House bill. Those sources say the added brackets would lead to a larger tax reduction for many middle-class Americans.

But those changes have not impressed budget skeptics. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation concluded Thursday that even under the most optimistic projections of economic growth, the Senate tax bill would add $1 trillion during the next decade to the publicly held debt, which is money the government owes to investors who buy treasury bonds or notes.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that without any changes in tax and spending policy, the government would add nearly $10 trillion over the next decade to the publicly held debt, which would saddle taxpayers with the type of debt not seen since the end of World War II.

The budget office projected last summer that the nation’s gross domestic product will expand at an average rate of just 1.9 percent during the next decade.

Portman dismisses such pessimistic projections, predicting that “we will do better than 1.9 percent, which means we will have even more revenue coming in.” Portman said “we’re never going to able to reduce the deficit and get the debt down without a growing economy.”

“I’m not saying every tax cut pays for itself,” Portman said, adding that lawmakers will have to restrain spending. But, he said, “it’s very hard to make the tough decisions you have to make on the debt without a growing economy.”

In addition, Portman’s approach on the tax bill has run smack into his claim that he wants to work with Democrats. Last month, his staff rushed out a triumphant press release after Portman received a bipartisanship award from the Leon Panetta Institute for Public Policy, with Portman saying he would “continue to work in a bipartisan manner to deliver results.”

On the tax bill, there was no such outreach. Convinced that they could pass a bill without Democratic votes, Senate Republicans adopted a parliamentary maneuver to prevent a Democratic filibuster, enabling them to pass the bill Saturday by a 51-to-49 vote.

“There hasn’t been a facade or a hollow attempt at bipartisanship,” said Leland, the Democrat.