By NIELS LESNIEWSKI and JOE WILLIAMS

Tuesday might not be the last time the Senate leaders address reporters before departing for August recess, but their messages were already setting the stage for September.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cited a letter signed by 45 members of the Democratic caucus, outlining the minority party’s priorities for a tax code rewrite, as one reason the Kentucky Republican intends to push the tax overhaul legislation using the budget reconciliation process, which would allow him to bypass their concerns.

The expedited procedures would allow an overhaul to pass with just a simple majority, but as was the case with the effort to roll back the 2010 health care law, that is no guarantee of success.

“We will need to use reconciliation because we have been informed by a majority of the Democrats in a letter I just received today that most of the principles that would get the country growing again, they’re not interested in addressing,” McConnell said. “I don’t think that this is going to be a 1986, where you had a bipartisan effort to scrub the code.”