House and Senate negotiator have made “tremendous progress” and are on track to put the tax cut bill to a final vote early next week, White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short said Tuesday.
Lawmakers have nearly completed the job of hammering out the differences between the each chamber’s bills in a conference committee and likely will draft the final GOP bill over the weekend, he said on Fox Business Network.
“There’s only a few outstanding issues that are pretty small at this point. So we hope to have a final bill in place real soon,” said Mr. Short, who has helped shepherded the bill for the White House. “There has been tremendous progress, and we are excited that we are on schedule. We said that we wanted to get this done before the end of the year.”
President Trump will make his closing argument for tax cuts to the American people in a speech Wednesday.
The tax cut bill would slash rates for individuals and businesses, but critics say it gives more to the wealthy and corporations at the expense of the middle class.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady confirmed that they are on track to produce a final conference report by the end of the week, though he deferred to Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy on possible timing for any vote.
“People know these provisions … they’ve been discussed broadly and widely in each of the versions,” said Mr. Brady, Texas Republican and chairman of the bicameral conference committee working out the differences between the two chambers’ versions.
He said lawmakers have been working hard on the issue for six years.
“So, it’s not like people don’t know these issues,” he said.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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