Donald Trump's Roy Moore Problem

President Trump was understandably thrilled by the House’s passage of its tax-cut bill Thursday. On Twitter called the vote a “a big step toward fulfilling our promise to deliver historic TAX CUTS for the American people by the end of the year.” Trump did not celebrate in the Rose Garden with House Republicans though, as he did following their passage of an Obamacare repeal bill in May. That victory lap on health care looked odd several weeks later, when the Senate failed to pass its version—and if the administration has learned anything from the Obamacare debacle, it’s to not declare a win too soon.

Once again, the Senate poses a problem for the White House’s legislative agenda. The votes aren’t there for the tax bill. At least not yet—because the GOP continues to deal with a narrow margin. Besides Ron Johnson, who has said he’s willing to be converted back to a “yes” if the pass-through entity tax rate is lowered, a number of senators are iffy.

John McCain has remained vaguely frustrated with the lack of “regular order” for the bill. And Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are opposed to the inclusion of a repeal of the individual mandate—an idea hatched by their colleague Tom Cotton, encouraged by Trump, and likely to be adopted by the Senate tax writers. But dropping that repeal could lose Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, who view it as a way to shore up revenues.

“The mandate repeal is a promise we all made and we should keep. It also allows an additional $300 billion+ in tax cuts,” Paul tweeted this week.

And it’s this concern—how are the tax cuts going to be paid for?—that has deficit hawks such as Jeff Flake, Jim Lankford, and Bob Corker wavering. “I’ve been concerned for a long time on our debt and deficit — that’s what animates me,” Flake told Time magazine on Tuesday. “There are a couple other people who are concerned as well. We can do tax reform in ways that will grow the economy but we can’t just ignore the debt and deficit.”