This Week in Congress: Tax Reform and Tax Hikes

Thanks to a group of so-called “deficit hawks” the Senate has to delay voting on the tax reform bill. As of this writing it appears the final deal will reduce the size of the tax cut by $350 billion dollars.

The problem started when the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the “trigger” provision where taxes rose automatically if the deficit increased would violate Senate rules. This forced Senate leadership to negotiate with those pushing the trigger, so they came up with the idea of limiting the size of the tax cut.

Now that this deal has been cut, voting on amendments to the tax bill should begin shortly. Senators Marco Rubio and Mike Lee are offering an amendment to increase the corporate tax credit by making it refundable against payroll tax liability (good) and “pay for it” by raising taxes (bad).

Campaign for Liberty members should call their Senators and tell them to oppose amendments imposing a carried interest tax and support Senator Rand Paul’s amendment repealing the anti-taxpayer privacy FACTA, and expanding education savings accounts to K-12 education.