Ryan: Tax bill coming next week

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) detailed the House’s timeline on tax reform Tuesday, saying Republicans will pass the Senate budget on Thursday, unveil their long-awaited tax reform legislation next week and send the bill to the Senate before Thanksgiving.

The Speaker laid out that ambitious timeline during a closed-door meeting of House Republicans in the basement of the Capitol, according to sources in the room.

House GOP leaders have decided to take up the fiscal 2018 budget resolution that the Senate passed last week. Approving that budget will allow Republicans to fast-track their tax-reform plan without needing to secure any Democratic votes in the Senate.

{mosads}“Passing the budget this Thursday will provide for us the runway to take off on tax reform, as the Speaker indicated, with a landing pad by the end of the year on the president’s desk,” said Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), who serves on the Ways and Means Committee that is writing the tax bill.

Reed and other Republicans on the same committee will hold day-long meetings Tuesday and Wednesday in the Longworth Building to hash out more of the details of the tax plan.

Some Republicans said the legislative text could be released as soon as Monday or Tuesday.

In a leadership news conference after the House GOP conference meeting, Ryan, an avid hunter, said the House is on track to pass tax reform by deer-hunting season, a pledge he made earlier in the year. The House breaks for its Thanksgiving recess on Nov. 16.

 “Thanksgiving week is opening week of gun season, so our goal is to get it out of the House by then,” Ryan told reporters. “The Senate’s a little slower on their track. … Our goal is to get it done by the end of this year.”

“We’ll give up Christmas if we have to,” Ryan joked. “We’re going to get this done.”