Healthcare bill spoiler John McCain, fresh off hitting a grand slam for the Democrats after saving Obamacare, is warming up in the on deck circle again. Could he be prepping to sandbag President Trump’s planned tax cuts too?
The senator’s vote matters because with a 52-seat majority, Republicans can’t afford more than two defections (Vice President Pence could push the package over the line in the event if a tie).
So far, McCain’s potential objections sound familiar. The senator helped tank the GOP’s Obamacare
rewrite by arguing in part that it hadn’t followed regular order — that is, there were no actual hearings on the measure before it was pushed to the floor.
“I’ve stated time and time again that one of the major failures of Obamacare was that it was rammed through Congress by Democrats on a strict party-line basis without a single Republican vote,” he said after his vote against the “skinny repeal” bill this summer. If Republicans can agree on a budget, it will set the tax package on the same path. And the spending blueprint would also strip some Republican commitments to transparency, including a pledge to post an official accounting of a tax measure’s budget impact more than a day before a vote.
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