Congress’ two-week work period beginning today is likely the bipartisan tax bill’s last real hope. And that hope isn’t high at all.
The bill from Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) is still a longshot, at best.
But backers are keenly aware that any shred of possibility of passing the bill begins to disappear after the tax filing season closes on April 15. Winning over Senate Republicans only gets more politically fraught as the election draws closer and changes to 2023 taxes get later.
The status: Heading into this brief April work period, the Senate GOP is mostly dug in against the Smith-Wyden bill. Only a handful of Republican senators have said publicly they’d vote for it.
GOP senators are largely lining up behind objections from Senate Finance Committee top Republican Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho. Crapo and Senate Republican leadership have urged colleagues to stick together and to vote against cloture.
Given that wall of opposition, a floor vote is unlikely. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is yet again juggling a busy calendar and bigger priorities, like FISA. But expect some pressure and attention to this during this work period, given the feeling that the bill’s time has nearly run out.
And this sets up an even messier fight next year when many of the Trump tax cuts expire. We detailed those dynamics in The Sunday Vault.
— Laura Weiss
