Congressional Republicans are facing their "do or do not" moment when it comes to tax reform, where simply trying is not good enough and "failing is not an option," The New York Times reports.
Republicans — especially in the Senate — are trying to dig out of a deep hole left by their failure to repeal and replace Obamacare, so another failure on tax cuts could be the fatal blow, with midterms a short year away.
But the initial signs are not good.
With the slimmest of majorities in the Senate, with residual friction left over from the healthcare battle, and with a tax framework that's getting painted as a massive burden on an already galactic deficit, success is not guaranteed.
"But there is such a growing realization that failure is not an option that they will be able to overcome a lot of these policy and political conflicts," Neil Bradley, a former top Republican official in the House, told the Times.
They have to — everybody is watching on this one.
"This is not one that can get left on the cutting room floor," Josh Holmes, a communications adviser told the Times. "It has become a barometer of whether Republicans can govern under Trump's leadership."
Knowing this, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday put pen to paper to cajole the one group he knows he needs to pass tax cuts — Democrats.
"Tax reform has been a bipartisan effort before. It can — and should — be a bipartisan effort again. All it will take is for our Democratic friends to continue supporting the very ideas they supported until Trump came along," McConnell wrote in a column for NBC.
And failing to put a bill on the desk of President Donald Trump won't be an indictment on the White House.
"Defeating the budget is dishing more punishment on your colleagues than it is on the president," Bradley told the Times.
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