Senate Democrats Appear to be Showing a Spine on Tax Reform

Hot off their recent success defeating the Senate Republicans’ secret, terrible healthcare bill, Senate Democrats are hoping to leverage that momentum into a—hopefully bipartisan—tax reform bill, NYT reports.

Today, a coalition of 45 Senate Democrats sent a letter to President Trump, Mitch McConnell and the Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, imploring them to work with Democrats for once on the new bill. You know, like the way politics are supposed to work.

We are confident that, by working together, we could modernize our tax system to increase working families’ wages, improve middle-class job growth, promote domestic investment, modernize our outdated business and international tax system and put in place sound fiscal policy.

Democrats are hoping to use heavier taxes on the wealthiest one percent to provide cuts for middle and lower class families, as well as a bill that won’t increase the deficit or provide cuts for social programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. These goals fall in line with Schumer’s “better deal” that he unveiled last week.

The Democrats’ goals will be difficult to reconcile with Republicans’ usual tax reforms that tend to disproportionately benefit the rich, though they claim to be open to bipartisan reform. The issue where the two parties are closest is corporate tax code reform.

If the two parties can find a way to craft a truly bipartisan bill, it could be the first step towards having a Congress that actually works.