House Majority Whip Steve Scalise said Wednesday that Congress would get a tax-reform plan to President Donald Trump by the end of the year because "failure is not an option."
"I have high confidence the Senate is going pass this bill," the Louisiana Republican told CNN. "I know the House is going to pass this bill.
"Failure is not an option. We've got to get it done.
"We'll get it done and get the bill on the president's desk — and it will get our economy moving again," he said.
The House is scheduled to vote Friday on its version of the tax plan, which slashes the corporate rate and lowers taxes for most Americans.
The legislation, however, limits the deduction for homeowners and adds $1.5 trillion to the nation's debt over the next decade.
The doubling of the standard deduction and an increase in the child tax credit would benefit middle-income families — and wealthy Americans would be greatly helped by a repeal of the alternative minimum tax and phase-out of the estate tax under the plan.
"We'll pass the bill," Scalise told CNN correspondent Phil Mattingly. "We want to cut taxes and put more money in the pockets of families and create jobs."
Noting that the House has passed legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare, Scalise said that he hoped plans to add a rescinding of the healthcare mandate made it into the final version of the Senate's tax bill.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that, while repealing the individual mandate would reduce the federal deficit by $338 billion over a decade, the move would leave 13 million Americans without coverage.
"I hope the Senate gets the vote," Scalise told Mattingly. "It is good policy — and some of those numbers you heard were wrong.
"You give freedom to people — and, so, nobody loses anything."
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