The following article by Seung Min Kim was posted on the Politico website December 18, 2017:
Days before his surprise announcement that he would support the GOP tax bill, Sen. Bob Corker had been summoning administration officials and economists to his office to see whether he could ultimately get on board with the plan.
One was Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former Congressional Budget Office director and adviser to GOP presidential campaigns who painstakingly went through varying analyses of the tax measure as Corker — accompanied by at least a half-dozen aides and stacks of spreadsheets — drilled him with questions.
“He said, ‘Look, we’re not going to change the outcome. This thing is becoming law, but we have to feel good about our vote. So we have some questions,’” Holtz-Eakin recalled in an interview Monday. “I didn’t walk out saying, ‘Oh, he definitely switched.’ But when he announced that, I was unsurprised.”
Yet the mystery over Corker’s flip quickly swirled into a political firestorm over suggestions that the senator decided to support the tax measure only after winning a provision that could personally enrich him. Liberal activists and lawmakers declared it the “Corker Kickback,” in a last-ditch bid to derail the bill — or at least further tarnish Republicans’ big tax win this week.
Corker denied the accusation, as did the chief tax writers in the House and Senate.
“I had obviously nothing whatsoever to do with that and I think that’s part of the public record,” Corker told reporters at the Capitol on Monday.
The final House-Senate tax compromise did nothing to reduce the measure’s trillion-dollar-plus increase of the federal deficit, which Corker cited as a chief reason for rejecting an earlier version of the bill. Still, the retiring Tennessee Republican, the sole GOP senator to vote against the chamber’s version, said he was confident in his decision to reverse course.
“On one hand, you had the deficit issue. On the other hand, you had the economic growth issue,” Corker said. “I took a long walk on Friday morning and just decided that from the standpoint of, if I were the deciding vote on this … is our country better with this or not better with it? And I feel that we are.”
Corker, who had also met with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to discuss the tax measure, spent considerable time on the phone with local business leaders in his home state and other experts to weigh the pros and cons of the bill, Corker said.
Nonetheless, the claim that a provision was snuck in during the final hours of bill drafting — and that Corker had asked for it — spread quickly over the weekend following an International Business Times reportthat people who hold real estate holdings through a limited liability company will be able to take advantage of a new deduction for “pass-through” businesses even if they have few employees. Pass-throughs are companies that pay taxes through the individual, not the corporate side of the tax code.
The IBTimes report noted the Trump family and several congressional Republicans, including Corker, would likely benefit from the language. Corker has accumulated significant wealth through his real estate investments, and he immediately came under fire from the left, which accused him of flipping his vote in favor of the tax bill solely because of the real estate language.
Corker said he had nothing to do with it, and did not seek specific tax changes in the bill. He sent a letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch on Sunday asking him to provide an explanation for how the provision made it into the final conference report.
In a letter released Monday, Hatch said it was “categorically false” that Corker sought the provision or that the language was inserted into the final tax legislation at the last minute. The Finance Committee chairman said he was “disgusted” at news reports that characterized it as otherwise.
“I am unaware of any attempt by you or your staff to contact anyone on the conference committee regarding this provision or any related policy matter,” Hatch wrote in the letter to Corker.
The Utah Republican added: “To the contrary, virtually all the concerns you had raised in the past about the treatment of pass-through businesses in tax reform were to voice skepticism about the generosity of various proposals under consideration.”
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady also tried to rebut the charges.
“To claim that Sen. Corker had anything to do with it, in my view, is baloney,” the Texas Republican told reporters Monday. “This was a provision that we have fought for, we thought was important and is important to the ultimate pass-through approach.”
Essentially, the final tax legislation married how the Senate dealt with treatment of “pass-through” businesses with a House approach that was favorable to real estate interests.
Opponents of the bill were not mollified. On Monday, a coalition of liberal activists called on Corker to release his tax returns and said the Senate should wait to vote on the bill until he does so — an unlikely scenario.
“Big banks, wealthy real estate developers and other special interests are already salivating at the opportunity to exploit the massive new tax loopholes Republicans have written for them,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Monday. “Republicans are racing to pass the bill before the public can discover all the giveaways, but the American people already recognize the tax scam for the daylight robbery it is.”
Corker’s surprise decision to support the tax bill after railing for weeks that it would increase the federal deficit provided a major boost to GOP leaders, who are rushing to get the final legislation to President Donald Trump so he can sign it into law before Christmas. The compromise tax legislation, which provides deep, permanent tax cuts for corporations, would balloon the deficit by about $1.456 trillion, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
Senate Republicans in particular have little room for error, with the GOP controlling a narrow 52-48 majority and Sen. John McCain , who is battling brain cancer, returning to Arizona. Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi has also been dealing with medical issues, although he is expected to be able to return for the tax vote later this week.
Corker said the potential for McCain and Cochran to miss votes “did not weigh in on what my decision was, in any way” and said Senate Republican leaders did not pressure him to change his mind because of possible absences.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) gave the tax measure added momentum Monday when she announced that she would also support the legislation.
“While it is no means perfect, on balance this reform bill will provide much needed tax relief,” Collins said during a floor speech Monday afternoon. “It will benefit low- and middle-income families while spurring the creation of good jobs and greater economic growth.”
Still undecided on the tax compromise is GOP Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona.
The House will vote first on the bill Tuesday before sending it to the Senate, where Vice President Mike Pence’s tie-breaking vote is not likely to be needed.
“I’m confident we’ll pass it in about 10 hours after the House sends it to us, hopefully early tomorrow afternoon,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas said. “We’ll pass it either tomorrow night or Wednesday morning.”
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