Rand (Paul) will stand in way of tax cuts, White House fears

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/10/white-house-leans-on-rand-paul-to-back-tax-plan-243601

Marc Short, the White House’s legislative affairs director, singled out the libertarian-leaning senator as crucial to the tax reform push, according to two sources familiar with the meeting at the American Action Network. And he advised those in the room to put immense pressure on Paul and make his vote on the Republican budget — required to pass tax reform along party lines — as difficult as possible so he’ll fall in line on taxes, those sources said. Paul is widely believed to be a “no” vote on the budget.

The Kentucky Republican’s outspoken opposition to a leadership-backed Obamacare repeal-and-replace bill and the backup Graham-Cassidy plan helped demolish the GOP’s health care agenda. And now Republicans are worried that the contrarian Paul is going to do the same on tax reform by coming out early and vocally against their work, according to two allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

snip . .

The Senate will consider the budget teeing up tax reform in mid-October, and Paul is privately sending signals he’ll vote against it, just as he did on the budget setting up Obamacare repeal in January, when he was the lone Republican senator to do so.

“The danger for this bill right now is the pay-for may be a middle-class tax hike. And if that’s that, it’s going to be a real problem,” Paul said. “If you lower the taxes on the rich and lower the taxes on the poor and then say, ‘Oh, it’s going to be revenue neutral,’ we’ve got to raise somebody’s taxes to pay for it.”