GOP leaders are confident their tax overhaul will pass this week

Sens. Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn.
(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Republican leaders said Sunday that they expected the House and the Senate to pass their joint tax overhaul this week in time for President Trump to sign it before Christmas, as promised. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the GOP whip, said on ABC's This Week that he was "confident" the Senate would pass the bill, as early as Tuesday. He said the legislation would "get the economy roaring back again" and give "everybody in every tax bracket a tax cut. So this is good news any way you cut it."

The vote promises to be tight, however. Republicans have a narrow 52-48 majority in the Senate, and Sen. John McCain plans to return to Arizona for the holidays after being hospitalized last week for what his office described as "normal side effects of his ongoing cancer therapy," meaning he will likely miss the vote.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.