Dem senator: GOP tax bill isn’t reflecting what Trump said he wants

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said Wednesday that he sees a “clear disconnect” between what President Trump has said he wants in tax reform and the Senate Republicans’ actual tax-reform proposal.

In an interview on CNN, Brown said that Trump has personally told him that he likes his tax-reform suggestions. The bill backed by Senate Republicans, on the other hand, has largely been crafted behind closed doors, Brown said.

“There’s a clear disconnect between what he said he wants in his campaign and in those conversations, and what’s going on in the back room,” Brown said.

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“I mean, this is a bill that’s been written in the back room — in the Majority Leader’s office — sitting down with Wall Street lobbyists and Koch brother lobbyists and drug company lobbyists and oil interests.”

The Ohio Democrat accused Republicans of changing the bill “every couple of nights,” pointing to the decision to add a provision repealing the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate while the measure was in the Senate Finance Committee.

Trump and congressional Republicans have sought to sell the bill as a package of middle-class tax cuts coupled with corporate and business tax cuts intended to boost economic growth.

Democrats, however, have argued that the tax cuts would amount to a massive windfall for the wealthiest Americans, and would fail to spur the kind of wage and hiring increases that the GOP claims it will.

The House passed its version of the tax-reform bill earlier this month. The Senate Budget Committee gave the Senate version of the bill a boost on Tuesday, when it voted along party lines to advance the measure.