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Senate hits another roadblock in push for GOP’s tax reform plan

Potential roadblocks emerged Wednesday that could hamper the Senate’s efforts to pass the GOP’s tax reform plan — but an upbeat President Trump remained confident.

Conservative groups and lawmakers lined up against a proposal by Senate Republicans to impose automatic tax hikes if their tax package doesn’t grow the economy and raise tax revenues as much as projected.

The opposition could doom a proposal aimed at mollifying deficit hawks who worry that tax cuts for businesses and individuals could add trillions to the national debt.

But tucking a potential tax increase into the tax cut bill isn’t sitting well with conservatives and pro-business groups like the US Chamber of Commerce.

“Automatic tax increases are a special level of insanity,” said Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.). “I don’t think it survives.”





On Wednesday night, the Senate voted 52-48 to advance the tax plan.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that Senate Republicans also debated whether to cut the corporate tax rate by less than Trump wants, to pay for other priorities.

One plan was to increase the child tax credit by raising the corporate tax rate to 22 percent from 20 percent.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said earlier this month that “this is one of the things that the president feels very strongly about. Twenty percent.”

A buoyant Trump, meanwhile, predicted during a campaign-style rally in St. Charles, Mo., that the GOP would prevail.

“If we do this, then America will win again like never, ever before,” he told the cheering crowd, while also reviving calls to build a border wall, kill ObamaCare and insulting North Korean despot Kim Jong Un.

With wires





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