Corker, Rubio Now a Yes on the Tax Bill
The bill will drop later this evening.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), both of which said they would vote on the tax bill, have both come out as a yes for the bill only a hours before its scheduled to come out.
The GOP now has zero senators declaring a no on the vote, but there are still a few undecided.
The GOP isn’t out of danger quite yet. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) remain undecided. If they decide to vote no then Vice President Mike Pence will cast his vote to break the tie.
Rubio
Yesterday I blogged that Rubio was going to vote no on the tax bill since he wanted to expand the child tax credit. The new tax bill has the child tax credit at $2,000, but a maximum of $1,100 is refundable Rubio and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) want it set at $3,000. As I said before, right now, it’s for those who make at least $3,000 a year. Rubio and Lee want to include those “who pay payroll taxes but do not earn enough to pay income taxes to claim the expanded credit.” This change “would expand the credit by $80 billion over 10 years, a smaller change than they proposed for the Senate bill.”
The leadership changed the bill to increase the refundable portion up $1,400, which was enough to change Rubio’s mind.
For far too long, Washington has ignored and left behind the American working class. Increasing the refundability of the Child Tax Credit from 55% to 70% is a solid step toward broader reforms which are both Pro-Growth and Pro-Worker.
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) December 15, 2017
Corker
Corker has been a defiant voice throughout this process and didn’t even vote for the Senate tax bill. He had concerns about the deficit and up until today said he wouldn’t change his mind.
Well….he did. From Politico:
Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the only GOP senator to vote against the Senate’s tax legislation, announced on Friday that he would support the tax compromise that was finalized this week.
“This bill is far from perfect, and left to my own accord, we would have reached bipartisan consensus on legislation that avoided any chance of adding to the deficit and far less would have been done on the individual side with items that do not generate economic growth,” Corker said in a statement. “But after great thought and consideration, I believe that this once-in-a-generation opportunity to make U.S. businesses domestically more productive and internationally more competitive is one we should not miss.”
Corker says he is a YES on the tax bill, in statement
— Joseph Lawler (@josephlawler) December 15, 2017
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Comments
So is McCain going to show up?
With these two, I don’t think they need him. (what a nice phrase)
I’m glad Rubio saw the light. If nothing else, he saw the absolute nutcracker he’d have to go to get elected dogcatcher if he shived the Republican party on a tax *cut* bill.
The GOP now has zero senators declaring a no on the vote, but there are still a few undecided.
It’s hard not to be a pessimist, when the GOPe is involved.
They’re good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Remember that “small e” stands for big evil…….
Rubio, always angling for that…..vote…..
“ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION – FLORIDA FACTS
Updated Estimate of the Number of Illegal Aliens in Florida
• The illegal alien population in Florida is now 950,000 persons. This represents 7.3 percent of the national total illegal alien population, and it is the nation�s fourth largest concentration of illegal aliens after California, Texas and New York. It is also about 5.2 percent of Florida�s overall population.
Costs of Illegal Immigration to Floridians
•$3.4 billion a year to educate illegal immigrant children and the U.S. born children of illegal immigrants.
•$290 million a year on unreimbursed health care for illegal aliens.
•$90 million a year to incarcerate criminal illegal aliens.
•The total represents an annual cost to each of Florida�s native-born headed households of $678.
http://www.flimen.org/illegal_immigration-FL_Facts.htm