Q&A on the GOP effort to overhaul the nation’s tax system
WASHINGTON » Divided Republicans in Congress are tackling an ambitious overhaul of the nation’s tax system that would deeply cut levies for corporations and double the standard deduction used by most average Americans.
Despite controlling Congress and the White House, Republicans failed to carry out their yearslong promise to dismantle and replace former President Barack Obama’s health care law. They say the nearly $6 trillion tax plan, to bring the first major revamp in three decades, is their once-in-ageneration opportunity. President Donald Trump sets it as his highest legislative priority.
But can they deliver? What are the next steps for Congress? How would the changes affect the average taxpayer? Some questions and answers: “It can be $5,000 average per individual, per group.”
That might sound like the pledge of “a chicken in every pot” that’s been attributed to President Herbert Hoover in the 1920s. But Trump’s claim is based on fuzzy math, in the view of skeptical tax experts and Democratic lawmakers.
Rather than helping the middle class, Democrats charge, the plan mainly would benefit wealthy individuals — like Trump — and big corporations.
The partisan debate over the plan is all about who’s got the middle class’s back. You’ll be hearing those two words a lot out of Washington in coming weeks. lobbying in the landmark 1986 tax overhaul under President Ronald Reagan, is about to get its second act.
The Republicans are promising to get a final bill to Trump’s desk by Christmas — already slippage from the earlier Thanksgiving deadline. The House version of the legislation is expected to come forward by early next month. The Senate has its own ideas and may well craft its own bill, which means the differences would have to be hammered out in a potentially contentious joint conference.