The decision puts a cap on a breathless stretch that lasted little more than 24 hours in which four New York Republicans voted “no” on House floor action to bring up unrelated legislation over their complaints that the tax deal does not include larger deductions for state and local tax relief.
After meeting with the speaker, the four GOP members then reversed their votes and let floor action proceed.
The speaker then had prolonged meetings into the night with House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) — the chief tax writer who brokered the tax deal — along with Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) — and the four New York members over how to break the impasse.
Reps. Nick LaLota, Anthony D’Esposito, Mike Lawler and Andrew Garbarino were hopeful that they could either leverage some SALT relief in the deal or else get the speaker to allow a vote on a separate bill to expand the SALT deduction that would be considered by the chamber contemporaneously.
However, the tax package to be considered this evening by the House remains unchanged from that reported out of the Ways and Means Committee 40-3 on Jan. 19. First votes begin at 4:00pm and late votes are currently scheduled for 8:00pm.
A vote of approval by a two-thirds majority in the House would send the package straight to the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has said he supports the legislation. But Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has yet to voice his views on the bill and Senate Republican tax writers have insisted they want their own mark-up of the bill to potentially force amendments on the package.
Both Republican and Democratic moderates in the House have voiced their approval of the deal, but some House Freedom Caucus members have expressed concerns that the child credit under current law allows undocumented immigrants with U.S.-born children to get tax refunds.
Several members are also opposed to increasing “refundability” of the credit as written under the deal, which allows low-income families to get part of the credit in the form of a check.
But the legislation’s momentum has overcome several obstacles that have threatened to derail efforts to get it to the House floor.
For instance, a resolution circulated on Monday by Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) to block the speaker from sending the deal to the floor until Johnson stripped all provisions related to the child credit — a decision that would have killed the bipartisan deal — has been retracted by McClintock, according to the lawmaker’s office.