Republican Tax Cut Legislation: Conference Committee

On Thursday, November 16, two weeks after it was introduced, the U.S. House passed its version of H.R. 1 by a vote of 227 to 205. On Saturday, December 2, the U.S. Senate passed its own version of H.R. 1 by a vote of 51 to 49.

Because the House and Senate must pass the same version of a bill in order for it to become law, House and Senate negotiators reconciled the differences between the two versions of H.R. 1 through a conference committee. On December 15, the conference committee released the final text of H.R. 1. This conference report will need to be adopted by the House and Senate again before being signed into law.

Joint Committee on Taxation's Side-by-Side Comparison of the House and Senate versions of H.R. 1 (December 7, 2017)

House Floor

On Monday, December 4, the House agreed to go to a conference by a vote of 222 to 192.

The House then rejected a Democratic motion to instruct conferees by a party-line vote of 233 to 186. The Democratic motion opposed the repeal of the individual mandate in the Senate bill and the elimination of the deduction for state and local taxes in the House bill.

Senate Floor

On Wednesday, December 6, the Senate began debate on accepting the House request for a conference. The Senate agreed to conference by a vote of 51 to 47.

There were four motions to instruct Senate conferees:
- Sen. King's (I-ME) motion would instruct conferees to ensure that any final conference report would not increase the deficit over the next 10 years (failed by a vote of 48 to 50)
- Sen. Stabenow's (D-MI) motion would instruct conferees to insist that any final conference report include a provision causing the corporate tax rate to revert to 35 percent in the event that real average household wages do not increase by at least $4,000 by 2020 (failed by a vote for 44 to 54)
- Sen. Rubio's (R-FL) motion would instruct conferees to insist that any conference report increase the refundable per-child tax credit to no less than $2,000 and that the credit be expanded to benefit more low-wage parents (passed by voice vote)
- Sen. Booker's (D-NJ) motion would insist that any final conference report not contain any provision that would increase the number of people who do not have health insurance nor increase health insurance premiums (failed by a vote of 47 to 51)