GOP/HEALTHCARE/OBAMACARE(ACA)/TAXES: “When Senate Republicans entered the final stages of the health care push earlier this year, it was clearly on its last legs. At least two senators had made it known that they had no real intention of voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and Republican leaders were casting about for something — anything — that could get 50 votes.
Now, as their tax bill reaches the homestretch, Republicans are in tantalizing reach of their first real legislative success of the Trump era.
The Senate is expected on Wednesday to vote to formally take up legislation that would cut taxes by as much as $1.5 trillion over 10 years, remake the corporate tax code and effect large changes to individual taxation. The routine procedural vote, so fraught during the health care debate, will begin an amendment process that should end in the bill’s passage by Friday.
And this time, Senate Republicans approach the finish line in a fundamentally different posture: confident, cooperative, even cocky.”
-Sheryl Gay Stolberberg, “Republicans, Entering Homestretch on Tax Cuts, Are Calm and Cooperative,” The New York Times online, Nov. 29, 2017