The House of Representatives has passed the tax reform bill again sincethe Senate stripped two provisions in the bill because it violated Senate rules and removed the title of the bill.
The Senate passed the revised bill late last night, 51-48, and sent it back to the House. The House passed the revised bill 224-201. Now the bill heads to President Donald Trump.
Trump said on Twitter he will hold a news conference at 1PM ET if the House passes the bill again. The White House will host a bill-passage event at 3PM with some members from Congress:
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says that after the tax bill passes, there will be a “bill passage event” (as distinct from a bill signing) at 3 p.m. at the White House today with members of the House and Senate.She adds: “This is not a signing event as the bill would still need to be enrolled and that will happen at a later date. We will keep you posted on details as they are confirmed.””Enrolled” refers to the completion of the steps needed to pass a bill, including being passed by both chambers, printed on parchment, and signed by House and Senate officials.
We do not for sure yet if Trump will sign the bill today due to a technical issue. Bloomberg explained:
White House National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn said Trump would sign the bill this year if Congress is able to pass a separate provision waiving automatic spending cuts as part of a year-end spending deal to avoid a government shut down before Friday. If not, Trump would sign the bill in early 2018, he said.Under the so-called PAYGO law, automatic cuts to Medicare and other spending categories would be triggered by the tax bill in January because the bill is scored as increasing the deficit by $1.5 trillion over ten years. Waiting until January means that those cuts would be delayed until 2019, according to budget expert Ed Lorenzen of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker Paul Ryan have vowed that the cuts would not be triggered. They will need Democrats to waive them this year, however, since doing so would require 60 votes in the Senate. Nearly the entire House Democratic caucus last week threatened to block a PAYGO waiver unless Republicans made concessions like restoring the Obamacare individual mandate.
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