Donald Trump will deliver a closing argument for the proposed Republican tax overhaul in a speech on Wednesday, said a person familiar with the matter.
President Trump’s speech will take place in Washington, said the person, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the event. It comes as House and Senate negotiators are working to iron out differences in the versions of the bill passed in their respective chambers.
“Getting closer and closer on the Tax Cut Bill. Shaping up even better than projected,” Trump said in a Twitter message early Sunday from his club in Palm Beach, Florida. “House and Senate working very hard and smart. End result will be not only important, but SPECIAL!”
Republican lawmakers and members of the administration have long said that the goal is to get a final tax bill to the president’s desk for a signature by year end.
Trump has pitched the bill as a boon to the middle class. Vice President Mike Pence said in a Twitter post last week that the plan would to deliver a pre-Christmas “middle-class miracle.”
Several independent studies suggest the benefits of tax cuts will be skewed toward high-income Americans, and that gains accruing to middle-income taxpayers will be uneven, because of the way widely used deductions may change.
The number of registered voters who said they support the House version of the bill, passed in November, was 36 percent in a Politico/Morning Consult tracking poll conducted Nov. 21-25. Opposition was at 36 percent. A majority of Democrats were opposed to the plan, while Republican support softened in late November from earlier in the month, to 59 percent from 66 percent.
Most estimates, including those by Congress’s own economists, also suggest that the tax cuts will add substantially to the U.S. budget deficit, and would be only partly offset by higher economic growth that may be generated by the changes.
