Trump hails ‘big win’ after House advances tax plan

President Trump celebrated the House’s passage of the GOP tax-reform plan Thursday, saying in a tweet that the vote was a “big win” for tax cuts and reform.

“Big win today in the House for GOP Tax Cuts and Reform, 227-205,” Trump tweeted late Thursday. “Zero Dems, they want to raise taxes much higher, but not for our military!”

Big win today in the House for GOP Tax Cuts and Reform, 227-205. Zero Dems, they want to raise taxes much higher, but not for our military!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 17, 2017

The House passed the legislation Thursday in a sweeping victory for the Republican leadership, despite no Democrats joining on and 13 members of the GOP breaking ranks to vote against it. Republicans have called the GOP bill “rocket fuel” that the economy needs for higher growth to occur.

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“Passing this bill is the single biggest thing we can do to grow the economy, to restore opportunity and help these middle-income families who are struggling,” Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said earlier in the day.

Trump visited the Capitol ahead of Thursday’s vote to rally the House GOP conference in support of the bill. Trump and his top economic advisers have been vocal in pushing tax reform as the key to unlocking America’s economic growth.

The GOP now turns to the Senate, which looks to pass its own tax-reform bill and send a final version to the president’s desk before the end of the year. Trump’s own officials have called such a timeline “extraordinary.”

“It took Ronald Reagan over two years on a bipartisan basis to get tax reform done,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said last month. “If we get it done this year, it will be extraordinary.” 

“Our objective is to get it on the president’s desk by December to get him to sign it this year,” he added, but cautioned that there’s “no artificial deadline.”