Republicans won’t let him touch 2017 tax cuts
Kane 21 [Paul; covered Congress since 2000, when he started at Roll Call with a beat focused on the Senate. He started with The Washington Post in 2007, covering the 2008 financial crisis and the Obama-Republican fiscal wars.; 4-29-2021; "Analysis"; Washington Post; https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/biden-republicans-tax-cuts/2021/04/29/b9e21b54-a877-11eb-8d25-7b30e74923ea_story.html;]//LASA-بيلال
Republicans have taken an aggressive approach to President Biden’s plans to finance his roughly $6 trillion agenda: Don’t mess with their 2017 tax cuts.
Even before Biden formally unveiled his plans, Republicans sent a message that they consider the 2017 law that slashed personal and corporate tax rates as a sacrosanct measure that they’ve no intention of gutting.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) explained this ethos in unusually blunt fashion when he returned to the Capitol on April 12 after Biden met with a small bipartisan group of lawmakers involved in infrastructure issues, telling the group he was targeting the very taxes that Republicans slashed four years ago.
“Clearly there are parts of his program that are non-starters for Republicans. The pay-for, I view the pay-for as a problem,” Wicker told reporters in the Capitol after that meeting. “I view the 2017 tax bill as one of my signature achievements in my entire career.”
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In many ways, Wicker signaled to Biden that Republicans view the 2017 law in the same manner that Democrats regard the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act: a signature achievement of domestic policy that they will defend in every way possible.
The two laws obviously had very different goals and very different results, one trying to provide health insurance for millions of uninsured Americans and the other reducing taxes on corporations and the wealthy.
But each law goes to core tenets of traditional Democratic and Republican orthodoxy, and Republicans are gearing up for the fight.
“There’s not an appetite to undo the 2017 tax act among our members,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the GOP whip, told reporters at lunchtime Wednesday, about nine hours before Biden’s address.
Immediately after Biden’s speech, one of the most bipartisan Republicans declared herself “not overly inspired” by the new president because his agenda was so expansive.