Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has promised lawmakers that the House will go to conference with the Senate — and that any outstanding concerns could be addressed there. | Win McNamee/Getty Images Tax bill teed up for House vote GOP leaders are confident they will pass the bill Thursday — without needing much help from Trump.

House Republicans are set to pass a sweeping rewrite of the tax code Thursday, bringing President Donald Trump and the GOP closer to the major legislative win they so desperately want. And leadership apparently barely lifted a finger to whip votes this week.

Speaker Paul Ryan and his top lieutenants have been working behind the scenes on a few tax reform holdouts in recent days. But House Republicans think they’ve already got enough votes lined up — and have not needed to turn to Trump to flip opponents.


Republicans cleared a key procedural vote on the massive tax-cuts package Wednesday afternoon on a party-line vote. The final passage vote is expected soon after Trump rallies the GOP Conference at an 11:30 a.m. closed-door meeting in the Capitol on Thursday.

There’s little room for error for Republicans. House Democrats have been working to keep their 194-member caucus together, not only to show unified opposition but to deny Republicans any opportunity to tout the bill as a bipartisan effort.

Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal, ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee, has been keeping close tabs on the Democratic Caucus’ most squishy members for months and recently redoubled his outreach to individuals who may be considering voting for the GOP plan. On Wednesday, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer predicted that not a single Democrat will vote for the tax package.

“I don’t think we’ll lose anybody,” Hoyer told reporters. “I think the consensus conclusion of almost every Democrat — pro-business Democrat, conservative Democrat — is that this bill is not good for the country, is not good for average working people.”

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White House sources say they're focusing all their energy on the Senate, with little concern about the House vote. The House whip team has not had to turn to the president to move people from "no" to "yes" — if only because most Republicans are so desperate for a legislative win. That’s a shift from a few months ago, when Trump persuaded wavering House members to pass legislation repealing Obamacare.

Republicans can afford to lose only 22 GOP votes. Most of those opponents, House Republican sources say, will be lawmakers from high-tax states, including half the delegation from New York and most of New Jersey, and perhaps one or two from California. Those members’ constituents could see a tax increase under the GOP plan because the bill axes their most prized tax break: the state and local tax deduction.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California has been working to keep fellow California Republicans on board after Rep. Darrell Issa peeled off last week. It’s unclear whether any other Golden State Republicans will join him in opposing the legislation, though sources say several are concerned about how the bill will affect their districts.

Issa told reporters Wednesday that he expects "two or three" California Republicans to follow suit.

Meanwhile, some conservatives are sulking over leadership’s refusal to include a repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate in the tax bill.

GOP leaders originally argued that mixing controversial health care matters with taxes could kill the tax package, legislation they believe they must pass to save their majority in 2018. They speculated that the Senate would be unlikely to pass such legislation if the two were combined — particularly because the upper chamber failed to rally around a single Obamacare replacement proposal.

But on Tuesday, Senate Republicans added the mandate repeal to their bill, surprising House GOP leaders and causing envy among some rank-and-file House members. Republican Study Committee Chairman Mark Walker of North Carolina tried to persuade House leaders Tuesday night to add the mandate repeal to the House bill, offering an amendment cosigned by 60 House Republicans during a Rules Committee hearing to combine the two issues. Leaders rebuffed him.

Despite some unhappiness with the final House product, GOP leaders have been selling members on the House plan by arguing that the bill they pass Thursday will not be the final version that heads to Trump’s desk. Ryan has promised lawmakers that the House will go to conference with the Senate — and that any outstanding concerns could be addressed at that time.

That argument appears to have won over a large swath of lawmakers. Conservatives who want the individual mandate in the bill are willing to wait. Others with more niche concerns — like preserving the historic tax credit to renovate older buildings, or changes they want made to the small business tax cuts — are similarly holding their fire.

That’s still a few weeks away, as Senate Republicans are expected to vote on their tax bill after Thanksgiving. After Senate passage, GOP leaders in both chambers will appoint conferees to begin hashing out their differences, from the phase-in of the corporate tax cuts to how they handle high-tax areas.

House Democrats, meanwhile, are working to keep members unified in opposition to the bill.

The White House and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady had courted some Blue Dogs and other moderate Democrats since the spring, hoping to pick off a few when their bill eventually made it to the floor.

Neal has met with each coalition within the caucus in recent months from the pro-business New Democrats to the Congressional Progressive Caucus to get a read on members. And in the two weeks since the House GOP bill was first introduced, he touched base with members considering supporting the plan, working them on the House floor or coordinating with other messengers to talk to them.

In a coup for Democrats, the leaders of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition put out a statement Wednesday announcing their opposition to the bill. The group, whose 18 members were seen as the most likely defectors, cited the tax bill’s deficit-busting numbers as the ultimate reason they decided to oppose the plan.

But privately, Democrats said they also were discouraged by Republicans’ promises of bipartisanship before shutting them out of every part of the process.

“I think this is probably one of the most hypocritical bills that I’ve seen on the floor of the House of Representatives,” Hoyer said. “It is one of the most fiscally reckless bills that has been presented. And I think there’s a consensus in our party that that’s the case.”