The Senate passed the most sweeping tax rewrite in decades early Saturday, with Republicans lining up to approve an overhaul that will touch almost every corner of the United States economy, affecting families, small business owners and multinational corporations, with the biggest benefits flowing to the highest-earning Americans.
Senators voted 51-49, as Republicans approved the nearly 500-page bill in the early morning hours after lawmakers received a rewritten version, which contained significant changes from the original bill that passed two Senate panels last month along party lines. The last-minute revisions prompted an outcry from Democrats, who said it was impossible — and irresponsible — for lawmakers to read and digest a significant piece of legislation in such a short period of time.
Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader and Kentucky Republican, called it “a great day for the country.”
The president praised Republican lawmakers on Saturday morning on Twitter, saying, “Biggest Tax Bill and Tax Cuts in history just passed in the Senate. Now these great Republicans will be going for final passage. Thank you to House and Senate Republicans for your hard work and commitment!”
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, said in a statement that with Senate approval “we will move quickly to a conference committee so we can get a final bill to President Trump’s desk.”
But, speaking on the Senate floor ahead of the vote, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, called the Republican approach “a process and a product that no one can be proud of and everyone should be ashamed of.”
As explained by Senator Jon Tester last night, this bill was handed to the Democrats with only a handful of hours before the vote, and with revisions being added almost up until the last minute.
Many of those revisions contained sweetheart deals for Senators who were previous hold outs like Susan Collins:I was just handed a 479-page tax bill a few hours before the vote. One page literally has hand scribbled policy changes on it that can’t be read. This is Washington, D.C. at its worst. Montanans deserve so much better. http://pic.twitter.com/q6lTpXoXS0— Senator Jon Tester (@SenatorTester) December 2, 2017
Several amendments that Collins offered were incorporated into the bill, including the restoration of a $10,000 deduction for property taxes and a lower threshold for deducting medical expenses.
Collins touted the ability for her to get changes into the bill as crucial to her decision to ultimately be able to support it.
And Lisa Murkowski:
Senate Republicans passed legislation early Saturday allowing oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as part of a tax reform package, moving closer to fulfilling a long-time GOP goal.
The passage of the bill marked a significant achievement for Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, the chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who has introduced legislation to open a portion of the Alaskan refuge to drilling every term she has served in the chamber, only to be blocked by Democrats.
“This small package offers a tremendous opportunity for Alaska, for the Gulf Coast, and for all of our nation,” Murkowski said before the vote. “We have authorized responsible energy development in the 1002 area.”
This has already received significant backlash from conversations groups:
A major conservation group is blasting the newly passed Senate GOP tax bill for allowing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), calling the bill “simply shameful.”
“Opening the Arctic to drilling as part of this tax plan is simply shameful. The Arctic Refuge isn’t a bank—drilling there won’t pay for the tax cuts the Senate just passed,” National Audubon Society President and CEO David Yarnold said in a statement Saturday.
Actually it is not likely to bring in much money at all as the cost of new drilling is quite high in Alaska and with the price of oil plunging the risk to cost ratio may mean that few, if any, new wells are dug.
In the meantime the bill did repeal the Obamacare mandate which means that the healthcare of millions of Americans will likely be affected by the vote.
The editorial board of the New York Times called it an "Historic Tax Heist":
The bill is expected to add more than $1.4 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade, a debt that will be paid by the poor and middle class in future tax increases and spending cuts to Medicare, Social Security and other government programs. Its modest tax cuts for the middle class disappear after eight years. And up to 13 million people stand to lose their health insurance because the bill makes a big change to the Affordable Care Act.
Yet Republicans somehow found a way to give a giant and permanent tax cut to corporations like Apple, General Electric and Goldman Sachs, saving those businesses tens of billions of dollars.
All in all it is a truly terrible bill, which is why the Republicans demanded that it be passed late last night, because they well knew that if the American people had the opportunity to really know what was in it that they would take to the streets with pitchforks and torches.
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