CNN reports:
Republicans say they have the votes! They’re going to pass a massive tax reform bill Friday night that would permanently lower corporate tax rates and undo the Obamacare individual coverage mandate. And a bunch of other stuff. We’re not exactly sure about everything it would do yet. Why? Because we haven’t read the tax reform bill.
Nobody has. Even the lawmakers who are about to vote on it. It’s still being written. That didn’t keep holdout Republicans from signing on to the bill throughout the day.
Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Susan Collins of Maine said they’d vote yes, virtually assuring passage, probably later Friday night. That lack of transparency has turned into one of Democrats’ major lines of attack in debate on the Senate floor and on social media.
Democrats on the floor right now arguing that a late-add to the tax bill benefits ONE college in Michigan, whose biggest donors are DeVos family (Erik Prince a grad). Toomey defending it
— Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) December 2, 2017
Sen. Blunt's special beer tax break ended up in the tax cut legislation. His son is a beer lobbyist. https://t.co/pxWUgIiWq1
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) December 1, 2017
P. 289 has a provision by Pat Toomey to create an exemption from the university endowment tax — the exemption appears to apply only to Hillsdale, a conservative college the DeVos family has generously donated to. https://t.co/8itf3xksua
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) December 2, 2017