Senate Republicans are rushing to change their tax overhaul just days before a planned floor vote, with GOP leaders trying to appease at least a half-dozen holdouts.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can lose only two votes and still pass the bill by week’s end. The last-minute modifications underscore the speed with which leadership is moving and the narrow margin for error on the party’s top legislative priority.


Two critical Republican swing votes, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Bob Corker of Tennessee, on Monday left open the possibility that they could vote against the tax plan in a key committee vote scheduled for Tuesday if changes weren’t made to their liking. That would tank the bill before it could reach the floor, putting more pressure on leadership to quickly make revisions.

Johnson and a fellow former businessman, GOP Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, are demanding more generous tax treatment for so-called pass-through businesses. Yet the changes they want are expensive, and tax-writers would have to find savings elsewhere to ensure the bill ultimately costs no more than $1.5 trillion over a decade as required under a budget framework.

“We’re gonna make them happy,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah said of Johnson and Daines. “But we’re not sure we can do exactly what they want to have done.”

And a handful of deficit hawks — including Corker and Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and James Lankford of Oklahoma — are discussing a trigger mechanism that would kick in and potentially change tax rates if the economic growth needed to defray the cost of the tax overhaul doesn’t materialize.

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A letter from Republican economists published in The Wall Street Journal projected that the business-side tax changes in the GOP plans could boost gross domestic product about 0.4 percent annually over a decade. Other analyses, however, have cast doubt on that estimate and said even that level of growth would not be enough to pay off the cost of the $1.4 trillion Senate tax cut.

“What if the growth estimates don’t hit the 0.4 percent? What happens?” said Lankford, one of a handful of Senate Republicans worried the bill will be a budget-buster. “What should happen in the tax code to be able to make the adjustments? Every economist is guessing.”

Corker told reporters he had spoken with National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn throughout the weekend about his deficit concerns, and also met with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin earlier on Monday. Mnuchin also made a stop at Daines’ office at the Capitol to discuss his concerns.

“We’re beginning to exchange some things in writing,” said Corker. “[We’re] working very closely with the administration and also some members of the Finance Committee to design a trigger or a backstop that in the event the revenue’s not there, there’s a way to recoup them so you’re in a situation where you’re not creating deficits should the projections that have been laid out not be real.”

Corker added that it was “very possible” he might vote no on Tuesday when the Senate Budget Committee meets to prepare the tax legislation for the floor. Johnson told The Associated Press that he will vote against the measure in the committee unless senators come up with a fix.

Republicans hold just a one-seat majority on the Budget Committee, although budget experts say there are likely ways to bring the measure directly to the Senate floor if it’s voted down in the committee.

But Corker also downplayed his potential opposition, saying his concerns over cutting taxes without measures to prevent increases to the national debt has “been known for some time.” Flake said he was “a bit” encouraged about the direction of those discussions, but added: “We have a ways to go.”

Yet the deficit hawks’ proposal is already stoking private concern from other Republicans, particularly the prospect that any legislative trigger could spike tax rates in a time of slow growth, potentially damaging the economy. GOP senators negotiating the backstop declined to offer details, although Lankford said any trigger would focus on the tax side, rather than spending.

“That’s one of the policy objections that I’ve heard, people say that at a time when you’re expecting economic growth as a result of the tax cuts and you create a mechanism that makes it hard to predict what taxes are going to be,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, his party’s chief vote-counter.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, argued that “The sooner [a deficit trigger hits] in the tax cuts, the less benefit the tax cut is.”

“Everybody that raises these concerns think tax rates are going to balance the budget,” Grassley said. “We don’t need more tax rates. We need more taxpayers.”

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) suggested he still had concerns about the proposal, too.

“I have to see what the bill says,” he told reporters. “It changes every day.”





So far, only Johnson and Daines have formally declared they would vote against the tax legislation as written, although the bill is certain to change as the chamber races toward a vote this week.

Top administration officials have ramped up their persuasion tactics on Daines, in particular.

President Donald Trump and Mnuchin phoned Daines on Sunday, talking through the Montana senator’s concerns about how the bill treats pass-through businesses — a broadly defined class of businesses that can range from single-employee small businesses to the Trump Organization. Vice President Mike Pence also called Daines over the weekend, as did Cohn last Wednesday night.

Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney are also wooing senators on individual concerns, one administration official said.

Daines suggested on Monday that he would like to remove a deduction on state and local taxes that corporations use to pay for small business tax changes.

“That generates $100 billion, $200 billion of revenue right there,” Daines said. “So it actually helps.”

Despite these hurdles, Senate Republicans and the administration have felt fairly optimistic about the tax overhaul’s prospects in the chamber. One potential obstacle for leadership evaporated earlier Monday when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced he would vote in favor of the tax bill.

The Senate plans to vote to proceed to floor debate on the tax bill on Wednesday, Cornyn said, and Trump will meet for lunch with GOP senators at the Capitol to boost momentum behind the overhaul.

“It’s going to be harrowing and could be some near-death moments,” a senior administration official said. “But I think we get it done.”

Ben White and Nancy Cook contributed to this report.

