In what promises to be the first major legislative victory for President Donald Trump, the US Congress passed on Wednesday the landmark $1.5 trillion tax overhaul with the House of Representatives clearing the measure with a final revote following a Senate vote with three minor revisions of a technical nature.
With the back-to-back passing of the unified Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, after reconciling differences between the initial House and Senate versions, the legislation will soon be sent to President Trump for his signature.
Ahead of the Presidential assent within the next few days, the White House sought to celebrate the passage by scheduling a “Bill passage event” within hours of the revote in the House.
The sweeping overhaul would cut taxes for all segments and double standard deductions levels, besides dramatically slashing the corporate tax from 35 per cent to 21 per cent which, Trump believes, will give a massive boost to job creation and prompt American companies bring back jobs outsourced to other countries.
Democrats, however, have lambasted the legislation as a massive Republican giveaway to corporations at the expense of the middle class, with some members asserting that 83 per cent of the benefits under the new legislation will go to the top 1 per cent of the populace. They have also warned that the Republican push would add about $1 trillion or more to federal budget deficits over a decade.
The Senate approved the tax overhaul (51-48) in a party-line vote, with every Republican present voting in favour and every Democrat voting against the measure. The only absentee Senator was Republican veteran John McCain, who is undergoing treatment for brain cancer.
The House had earlier passed the bill by a 227-203 vote. And in the revote on Wednesday, the House cleared the measure by 224-201 margin.
Trump took to Twitter in the wee hours to proclaim, “The United States Senate just passed the biggest in history tax cut and reform bill. Terrible individual mandate (Obamacare) repealed.
Goes to the House tomorrow morning for final vote...”
While Obamacare health insurance plan itself remains in place after earlier Republican bids to repeal it failed, the tax bill does away with one important aspect of Obamacare, namely removal of the individual mandate under which people opting out of health insurance were subject to a penalty.
Trump lauded the Republican leadership in both chambers. “I would like to congratulate @SenateMajldr (Mitch McConnell) on having done a fantastic job both strategically & politically,” he tweeted, adding: “Our team will go onto many more victories!” In a similar praise for House Republicans earlier, he congratulated Speaker Paul Ryan and others.