Republicans far apart on tax strategy week before release of outline

Republicans are split on a strategy for moving tax reform legislation through Congress, one week before they are supposed to release a document outlining their plan to overhaul the tax code. In other words, Republicans not only don't have consensus on the content of a tax plan, they also haven't agreed on how to go about legislating one.

Some Senate Republicans on Tuesday mulled the idea of writing a budget that would allow them to pursue tax changes that lost significant revenue, weighing the possibility of a $1.5 trillion net tax cut over 10 years.

That approach would allow them to bypass the filibuster through budget reconciliation, the legislative procedure that allows bills to clear the Senate with only 51 votes.

But because of rules preventing reconciliation from adding to long-term deficits, the strategy likely would require that at least some tax provisions would have to be temporary.

House Republicans have staked out a different route. The House Budget Committee has advanced a budget that would require the tax plan to be revenue-neutral, meaning the reform would have to raise as much revenue as would be lost from tax cuts, after accounting for any economic growth generated by the improved tax code. In the House GOP version, the tax reform could be permanent.