GOP/HOUSE OF REPS/TAXES: “House Republicans are unveiling an ambitious fiscal plan on Tuesday [7-18-17] that could let them rewrite the tax code, revamp medical malpractice laws, change federal employees’ retirement benefits and partially repeal the Dodd-Frank financial regulations—all in a single law without any votes from Democrats.
The strategy, embedded in the House GOP fiscal 2018 budget, faces a host of political and procedural obstacles, including many of the same ones that derailed the party’s health-care bill in the Senate.
Republicans this year control the House, Senate and White House for the first time since January 2007, and they are trying to take advantage of that moment by pairing a landmark tax bill with at least $203 billion in deficit-reduction measures…
Most bills can be filibustered in the Senate and require a 60-vote threshold. What Republicans are trying to do is take advantage of an exception to that rule—the so-called reconciliation procedures allowed under budgetary law.
Under reconciliation, fiscally oriented bills can become law with a simple-majority vote in both chambers and a signature from the president. They can’t increase long-run budget deficits and must hit fiscal targets set out by the budget. To get to that point, Congress must adopt a budget first, which means the House and Senate must agree twice, once on the budget and then again on the ultimate bill.”
-Richard Rubin, “House Republicans Set Out Plan to Rewrite Tax Code,” The Wall Street Journal online, July 18, 2017 05:00am