Senate Republicans Go Their Own Way on Tax Reform
The GOP was supposed to be unified on taxes after internal divisions destroyed their health-care drive. But the party’s majorities in Congress now have two competing legislative proposals once again.
Republicans promised tax reform would be different.
The party, one leader after another insisted, had learned its lesson from its failure on health care, when fundamental policy disagreements split the Capitol in two and left the Affordable Care Act in one piece. There would be no such meltdown on taxes, and to that end, top Republican officials spent months negotiating what they called a “unified framework” for legislation. “The whole point of all of this is the House, the Senate, and the White House are starting from the same page and the same outline, and tax writers are going to take it from there,” Speaker Paul Ryan said in September.
On Thursday, however,
