House to Hold One Last Vote on Tax Reform

A procedural hurdle in the U.S. Senate means the House of Representatives will return on Wednesday to vote on a slightly modified version of the tax bill it passed Tuesday. After House speaker Paul Ryan gleefully gaveled the vote, but before the Senate parliamentarian determined three provisions had to be stricken from the bill, President Donald Trump tweeted this:

Congratulations to Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Kevin Brady, Steve Scalise, Cathy McMorris Rodgers and all great House Republicans who voted in favor of cutting your taxes!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2017

At the risk of repeating the Rose Garden victory party after the House passed Obamacare repeal earlier this year, the president has every reason to celebrate. The tax bill may be polling poorly as it heads to Trump’s desk, but he and the Republican party head into next year’s midterm election cycle with a substantive legislative accomplishment they can argue is helping boost the economy.

Tax reform isn’t the cure for the GOP’s precarious electoral outlook in 2018—Trump’s overall low approval rating and the historical rejection a president’s party gets at the first midterm remain problems. But it’s hard to see how Republicans hold on to both houses of Congress without a big victory like these tax cuts.

Mark It Down—“We anticipate that they're going to go up as more and more of these things continue to happen and particularly as more and more people start to feel the impact of the booming economy, the tax cuts that will take place later tonight and go into effect in the first part of February.” —White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, on President Trump’s low approval ratings, December 19, 2017