John Cornyn, the No. 2 U.S. Senate Republican, said on Sunday a controversial tax provision was added to the GOP tax bill in order to “cobble together the votes we needed to get this bill passed.”
“Well, the particular provision you're talking about, honestly, is just one piece of a 1,000-page bill which is going to grow the American economy,” the lawmaker from Texas said on ABC’s “This Week,” when George Stephanopoulos asked him how he got Republican Sen. Bob Corker on board with the provision.
“And, what we are seeing is that American corporations and businesses are not competitive in the global economy because we have the highest tax rate in the industrialized world. All we did is adopt ideas that people like Barack Obama and other Democrats have proposed when it comes to the business tax rates and should try to get our businesses more competitive, to increase take-home pay and to grow the number of jobs available for working-class families.”
Corker on Friday suddenly decided to switch his vote to yes after Republican party leaders added the provision, which would reduce taxes on income from real-estate LLCs. Corker, a real estate mogul like Trump and a Republican, stands to benefit since he made up to $7 million last year from such income.
Republicans are relying on Corker to vote yes since the party can afford only two defectors. The Tennessee lawmaker was the only GOP senator voting no on the legislation prior to Friday.
"I had like a two-page summary I went through with leadership," Corker told IBT of the bill. "I never saw the actual text."
IBT first reported on the provision, which was added during the reconciliation.
Corker told IBT he didn’t know about the provision.
"If I understand what [the provision] does, it sounds totally unnecessary and borderline ridiculous," he said.
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