The tax vote looms over the Senate. Will the measure make it through Congress before 2017 ends? Victory seems so precarious that Vice President Mike Pence postponed a planned trip abroad so he could preside over the Senate during the expected vote.
Sen. John McCain is too ill to travel, trapping him in Arizona. Republicans’ slim majority won’t hold without his vote, which is why Pence is sticking around. His trip, where he plans to visit Egypt, Israel, and Germany, has been delayed until January.
“The largest tax cut in American history is a landmark accomplishment for President Trump and a relief to millions of hardworking Americans,” Alyssa Farah, a spokeswoman for Pence’s office, said in a statement.
“The vice president is committed to seeing the tax cut through to the finish line… The vice president looks forward to traveling to Egypt and Israel in January.”
Democrats are doing their best to tank the bill. Every single Democrat in the Senate is expected to vote no. Republicans can only afford to lose two votes. Pence’s presence will ensure that a tie vote isn’t an option. His deciding vote, obviously, will be in favor of tax reform.
Pence’s new itinerary shows how critical the tax reform bill is to the administration’s success.
“The schedule shift comes after President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital prompted Palestinian officials and leading Muslim and Christian clerics in Egypt to refuse to meet with Pence,” reports the Daily Mail.
“The vice president had been scheduled to be in Cairo on Wednesday for a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi…”
If tax reform clears Congress, and it will represent a major achievement for President Trump.
(Source: Daily Mail)