Big GOP tax bill would cut rates _ but also popular breaks
WASHINGTON» With fanfare and a White House kickoff, House Republicans unfurled a broad tax-overhaul plan Thursday that would touch virtually all Americans and the economy’s every corner, mingling sharply lower rates for corporations and reduced personal taxes formanywith fewer deductions for homebuyers and families with steep medical bills.
Themeasure, whichwould be themost extensive rewrite of the nation’s tax code in three decades, is the product of a party that faces increasing pressure to produce a marquee legislative victory of some sort before next year’s elections. GOP leaders touted the plan as a sparkplug for the economy and a boon to themiddle class and christened it the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
“We are working to give the American people a giant tax cut for Christmas,” President Donald Trump said in theOvalOffice. Themeasure, he said, “will also be tax reform, and it will create jobs.”
It would also increase the national debt, a problemfor someRepublicans. AndDemocrats attacked the proposal as the GOP’s latest bonanza for the rich, with a phase-out of the inheritance tax and repeal of the alternative minimumtax on the highest earners — certain to help Trump and members of his family and Cabinet, among others.
“If you’re the wealthiest 1 percent, Republicans will give you the sun, the moon and the stars, all of that at the expense of the great middle class,” said House Minority LeaderNancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
And there was enough discontent among Republicans and business groups to leave the legislation’s fate uncertain in a journey through Congress that leaders hope will deposit a landmark bill on Trump’s desk by year’s end.
Underscoring problems ahead, some Republicans from high-tax Northeastern states expressed opposition to the measure’s elimination of thedeductionfor stateand local income taxes. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah called the House measure “a great starting point” but said it would be “somewhat miraculous” if its corporate tax rate reduction to 20 percent — amajor Trump goal— survived. His panel plans to produce its own tax package in the coming days.