Is Trump Ready to Sell the Republican Tax Plan?

Wednesday was supposed to be a big day in Washington for Republicans still searching for a big legislative accomplishment for Donald Trump’s first year in the White House. GOP leaders in the House of Representatives had planned to release their legislation Wednesday, which the White House is saying is “based on the tax reform framework the president supports.”

But according to Politico, Republicans were still “scrambling” on Tuesday to finalize the details of the plan, and Jonathan Swan of Axios reported Tuesday night that the release would be delayed until Thursday. Later on Tuesday, however, the GOP chair of the House tax-writing committee, Kevin Brady, said there was “no change in the schedule” and vowed to work through the night—that is, until Brady released a statement confirming he would release the text of the bill on Thursday after consulting with “President Trump and our leadership team.”

The White House is framing the delay as a minor change, from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday morning, in order to ensure everyone is in the loop. But the late-night meetings and possible delays reveal how difficult the challenge is for Republicans to pay for their desired tax cuts by shoring up revenue elsewhere. Lawmakers have floated a number of changes to deductions, each with their own constituencies who want to protect them. And despite the White House intending to leave the difficult job of hammering things out to Congress, President Trump has in recent weeks stepped in to take certain ideas—like limiting pre-tax contributions to 401(k) retirement plans—seemingly off the table.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has not been so willing to comment on what the president prefers (or doesn’t prefer). “We've laid out our priorities for the tax cut plan. Those haven’t changed,” she said when asked Tuesday where the president stands on the deduction for state and local taxes, which benefit residents of high-tax states. What about the mortgage-interest deduction? “We haven’t made any changes to the priorities that we've laid out,” Sanders said. “I'm not going to negotiate between you and I. But the president is going to be involved in ongoing conversations with members of both the House and Senate, and we've laid out what our priorities are and we're going to stick to those as we move forward.”

One of those conversations happened Tuesday at the White House, where House speaker Paul Ryan met with Trump to update him on the state of the tax reform effort. “The leaders agreed on the urgency of helping the middle class by enacting historic tax reform by the end of the year,” read a statement from Ryan’s office following the meeting. “The speaker outlined the House’s schedule to follow this week’s introduction of tax reform legislation with committee and floor action in the coming weeks. The speaker and President Trump both expressed eagerness to finish the year by delivering results for the American people.”