GOPs Strategy on Tax Plan Raises Concerns of Health-Overhaul Replay

As Republicans push forward to rewrite the tax code, some stakeholders are warning that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is adopting the same legislative strategy that proved unsuccessful with health care.

The effort to overturn the 2010 Affordable Care Act collapsed after GOP lawmakers wrote the legislation behind closed doors and depended solely on votes from their own party to pass the bill. When three of them balked, the measure failed since no Democrat supported it.

Republicans are taking that same approach on the tax package—despite efforts by some Democrats to engage in the process, according to lawmaker interviews.

“One of the things that typically you do in governing is you reach consensus but you use both sides of the aisle to do so,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.).

Donald Trump has courted Democratic lawmakers on the House and Senate tax-writing committees, meeting with them at the White House. “I think we’re going to get some Democratic votes,” he said Wednesday when asked about the tax measure. But his outreach hasn’t been matched with similar efforts by Senate Republican leaders. Democrats say they have not seen the tax legislation and don’t expect to see it before it is released to the public next week

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The week before the Senate left on its October recess, Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) approached Mr. McConnell (R., Ky.) on the Senate floor and asked for a meeting. Sitting in the leader’s Capitol office, Mr. Manchin said he encouraged the Majority Leader to avoid using reconciliation, a budget process that allows Republicans to pass legislation with 51 votes. “’Mitch, I want to work with you, I’d like to have input’,” Mr. Manchin said he told Mr. McConnell.

The leader refused, maintaining that the GOP agenda was going to be hard enough to get 50 votes, counting on a Vice President Mike Pence to break a tie. “He doesn’t think there is any way to get through regular order and I just said ‘Mitch, you never know until you try’,” Mr. Manchin said of the meeting.

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/gops-strategy-on-tax-plan-raises-concerns-of-health-overhaul-replay-1509102000

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Murkowski, McCain, Collins, Corker, Flake - are you hearing this?