Austin American-Statesman: Republicans say they have a tax cut deal but Democrats can't see it

WASHINGTON – Republicans who control Congress struck a deal Wednesday on an overhaul of the tax code, but they kept details under wraps amid reports that the revised bill sweetened tax breaks for the richest Americans.

The legislation would cut the top personal income tax rate from 39.6% to 37%, lower the corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21% and allow homeowners to deduct interest only on the first $750,000 of a new mortgage, the Associated Press reported.

Republicans refused to confirm those changes, and Democrats complained they were barred from seeing the bill.

The new bill meshes competing tax plans that passed the House last month and the Senate in early December. Republicans are rushing with unprecedented speed to pass a tax overhaul before the end of the year, so they can claim their first major legislative agreement under GOP control of the legislative and executive branches.

President Trump prodded the Republicans to pass the tax bill as quickly as possible.

Trump and congressional Republicans made a tax bill their top priority after failing to overhaul health insurance and repeal the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

Trump promoted the bill Wednesday, saying middle-class Americans would get a sizable tax cut. That contradicts reports by congressional and independent experts, who concluded that the wealthy and corporations would get most of the benefits, many middle- and lower-income Americans would pay higher taxes in a decade, and the federal debt would grow by more than $1 trillion.

At Wednesday's meeting of a House-Senate conference committee — traditionally convened to work out differences between legislation passed by the two chambers — House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, told Democrats they would see the final bill when it was finished at the end of the week. Brady said the members could express their views on it when both chambers vote on it next week.

"As a candidate, I promised we would pass a massive tax cut for the everyday, working American families who are the backbone and the heartbeat of our country," Trump said. "Now we're just days away."

Trump said the Internal Revenue Service concluded that if a tax bill is signed by Christmas, the tax withheld from workers' paychecks could be adjusted as soon as February.

Trump said before a lunch with some members of the conference committee he would accept a top corporate rate or 21% in the bill. During last year's campaign, Trump had said he wanted a 15% corporate rate, but 21% would provide more revenue to settle other differences in the House and Senate bills.

Democrats have voted unanimously against the tax bills. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer D-N.Y., called Wednesday morning for action on taxes to be delayed until the newly elected senator from Alabama, Democrat Doug Jones, could be sworn in.

"Senate Democrats are calling on Mitch McConnell to hit pause on the tax bill," Schumer said.

Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., tried to postpone the hearing of the conference committee Wednesday afternoon until Jones could arrive.

Brady told him the committee's rules did not allow him to make that motion, an answer Brady repeated often as increasingly agitated Democrats tried to find out whether the committee would meet again to consider the final tax bill (it won't), or whether there would be a formal "score" of the economic impacts of the final bill (that is likely, but Brady wouldn't say so).

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, said he sensed fear among the Republicans. "It is the fear that if you don't rush this through, with no questions, no amendments, no nothing, if the American people really find out what is in this bill, they will reject it, and it will never be able to become law."

Republicans united behind the plan, saying that along with lower taxes on workers' pay, the lower taxes will generate a stronger economy with more jobs that pay higher salaries. "We reject the idea that America cannot do any better than the status quo, which seems to be the attitude of our members across the aisle," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

Democrats argued that the true cost of the tax plan would come when increased deficits — official scorekeepers said it would add at least $1 trillion to the national debt, even after economic growth was taken into account — prompted Republicans to try to make cutbacks to Social Security, Medicare, education and the social safety net.

"In America today, the very wealthy are becoming much more wealthy while the middle class continues to shrink, and your solution is to give 62% of the benefits to the top 1%?" said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who opposed the bill when it came up Dec. 2, said passage was inevitable. "There's a locomotive," he said. "It's not stoppable."