Congress is trying to ram through a bill that would reshape theU.S. economy in just a few short weeks, but its leaders have keptthe plan shrouded in secrecy and released not a word of legislativetext.

Sound familiar? The GOP is handling its tax-overhaul rollout in almost the exact way itdid Obamacare and hoping for a different result. The Republicans’seven-year quest to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Actimploded as they tried to bypass Democrats but failed to rally their own forces amid unresolved policydisputes.

Already, many lawmakers are making similar complaints about thetax effort -- saying they need more details before they can committo the audacious timeline House Speaker Paul Ryan has vowed tomeet: He wants a bill through the House by Thanksgiving.Rank-and-file members fear they’ll have two choices: Swallowwhatever bill their leaders devise or blow their self-imposeddeadline of sending a bill to President Donald Trump before year’send.

“We don’t know the brackets,” Representative Chris Collins ofNew York, a Trump ally, told reporters after a Republicanconference meeting Tuesday. “We don’t know where we are on estatetaxes. We don’t know where we are on” the state and local taxdeduction -- a contentious issue for members like Collins fromhigh-tax states.

“We don’t know where we are on the size of the child taxcredit,” he continued. “We don’t know, we don’t know, we don’tknow, we don’t know, we don’t know.”

In the Senate, meanwhile, bad blood between a pair ofRepublicans and Trump escalated on Tuesday -- bringing tumult asthe president sought to reach out to senators during a Capitol Hillvisit. Trump and Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee reignited theirfeud, hurling insults over Twitter. Later, Senator Jeff Flake ofArizona, who has also sparred with Trump, shocked the politicalworld by announcing he won’t seek reelection in 2018 -- and thenslammed his party for accommodating the president.

“I must say that we have fooled ourselves for long enough that apivot to governing is right around the corner, a return to civilityand stability right behind it,” Flake said on the Senate floor. “Bynow, we all know better than that.”

If the similarities to the Obamacare debacle seem haunting, GOPleaders are betting they won’t be stymied this time -- if onlybecause of the party’s sheer need for a legislative victory.There’s another key difference: Republicans say they learned fromthe health-care fight that they had to come up with a unified taxplan, along with the White House, before either chamber begandrafting legislation.

The Sept. 27 tax framework released by the White House and GOPleaders sought to lay out some clear goals -- including setting acorporate tax rate of 20 percent and cutting tax rates onbusinesses and individuals -- but it doesn’t offer answers to someof the toughest questions, such as where to set income brackets orwhich corporate tax breaks to end.

The House and Senate may go their separate ways in filling inthe blanks -- and possibly changing key provisions included in theframework. For his part, Trump has already ruled out certainmeasures, such as changes to retirement savings vehicles, but thetax-writing committee heads have signaled that retirement changescould still be on the table.

Continued on next page >>>

‘Amateur view’

House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady said Tuesday his goalis to release tax legislation on Nov. 1 if Congress votes this weekto adopt the budget vehicle, a critical step to passing tax changeswithout Democratic support.

One member of his committee, Representative Dave Schweikert ofArizona, responded succinctly when asked what issues are stilloutstanding: “All of them.”

David Stockman, a former budget director for President RonaldReagan, said the Trump plan “can’t possibly get done by year-end,”describing that as an unrealistic and “amateur” view. He saidReagan’s 1986 tax overhaul, which Republicans cite as a guidinglight for their current efforts, took two years because cobblingtogether the support for raising revenue to pay for tax cuts is“very hard politically.”

The president’s feuds with Corker and Flake won’t make it anyeasier. Because neither senator is seeking re-election, they canvote on tax legislation free of the political pressure manyRepublican incumbents feel to show voters an achievement beforeprimaries begin next spring. After failing to repeal the 2010Affordable Care Act, build a wall, or pass an infrastructure bill,party leaders see a tax overhaul as their last chance for alegislative win in Trump’s first year.

‘Lot of noise’

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell deflected repeatedquestions Tuesday about Trump and his GOP members, insisting thedisputes won’t affect tax-overhaul efforts.

“If there’s anything that unifies Republicans it’s tax reform,”McConnell said, dismissing the spats as “a lot of noise out there.”He faces the same narrow margin that scuttled an Obamacare repealin the Senate -- any more than two defections would block a taxbill unless he can find Democratic support, which isn’t likely.

The road ahead contains landmines -- including must-pass billssuch as averting a government shutdown on Dec. 8 and renewing theexpired Children’s Health Insurance Program. Another problem is howto get the GOP framework’s $2.4 trillion inestimated red ink down to $1.5 trillion specified by the budget,especially if pay-fors like the proposed repeal of the state andlocal tax break are softened and the Child Tax Credit israised.

Representative Dave Brat of Virginia said he’s hearing “scarybackground noise” that the revenue offsets may go away and, as aresult, the bill’s tax rates could be higher than expected. Theframework proposes slashing the corporate rate to 20 percent from35 percent and condensing the individual income rates from seven tothree, with a top rate of 35 percent, unless the tax committeesdecide to add a fourth rate above that.

“We can do this. There is a lot that needs to get done,” saidRepresentative Lee Zeldin, a New York Republican.

But the lack of details have some GOP members on edge.

Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, a freshman Republican,said he’s not ready to “vote for a budget that nobody believes infor a tax bill that no one has read.”

Copyright 2018 Bloomberg. All rightsreserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten,or redistributed.