20 December 2017 House vote sends tax bill to President The House on December 20, 2017, approved the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" (H.R. 1) Conference Agreement for the second time, sending the measure to the President and delivering the most significant legislative achievement to date of the Trump Administration and the first major overhaul of the federal income tax in more than 30 years. The President may not sign the bill until after the New Year if Congress does not approve a waiver of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 with regard to the tax bill. "If we can get 'pay-go' waived in the CR, we will sign the tax bill this year," National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn said at an Axios event, according to the Wall Street Journal. "The president would like to sign the tax bill." The Congressional Budget Office said in November that a $1.5 trillion tax cut would prompt a sequestration order resulting in more than $100 billion in mandatory spending cuts, including about $25 billion from Medicare, at the end of the 2017 congressional session. Waiting until 2018 to sign the bill would delay the cuts and the need for a vote to waive the rules. President Trump has announced a news conference for approximately 1 p.m. on December 20, 2017. The White House has announced a "bill passage event" for 3 p.m. December 20, 2017. A second House vote was required after the Senate changed the bill because of a point of order that deemed three provisions in violation of the Byrd Rule under the budget reconciliation process. The changes removed "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" as the short title of the bill, removed language that allows Section 529 accounts to be used for homeschool expenses, and removed references to "tuition-paying" students for purposes of the excise tax on the investment income of certain educational institutions.
Document ID: 2017-2159 | |||||
