Donald Trump And Lindsey Graham Play Golf, Talk Taxes

WEST PALM BEACH, FL — President Donald Trump and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina played a round of golf together at his golf club in West Palm Beach on Sunday and went over the GOP tax plan and looming budget talks, which Trump wants to sign by Christmas.

Trump set a Christmas deadline for signing the bill into law and gave lawmakers named to a special conference committee two weeks to iron out major differences in the House and Senate versions. The conference committee has scheduled its first formal meeting for Wednesday.

Both measures would slash taxes by about $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years and add billions to the $20 trillion deficit, combining steep tax cuts for corporations with more modest reductions for most people.

Trump on Sunday tried to gloss over the difficult task ahead for lawmakers and tweeted about the pending bill before going to his golf club with Graham, a fellow Republican. Graham has become a regular golf partner for Trump. They discussed the tax bill and upcoming budget talks after teeing off, said White House spokesman Raj Shah.

"Getting closer and closer on the Tax Cut Bill. Shaping up even better than projected," Trump said on Twitter. "House and Senate working very hard and smart. End result will be not only important, but SPECIAL!"

Significant differences between the bills must be worked out before Trump can fulfill a campaign promise and score his first major legislative achievement. Republican lawmakers, including Graham, have said publicly that failure on taxes — after the embarrassing collapse of several attempts to repeal the Obama-era health care law — would be politically devastating with control of the House and Senate at stake in midterm elections next year.

"It would be a complete disaster," Graham said in October.

The House bill collapses the seven existing personal income tax brackets to four, while the Senate version retains the seven but changes their percentages. The mortgage interest deduction is more generous under the Senate bill. There are also questions about what to do with the alternative minimum tax and how to handle the tax treatment of millions of U.S. businesses organized as "pass throughs," as well as the federal deduction for state and local income taxes.

The Senate bill ends the requirement that most consumers buy health insurance or pay a tax penalty, while the House measure avoids the issue.

"I can think of no better Christmas present for the American people than giving you a massive tax cut. That's what's happening," Trump said Friday night at a campaign rally in Pensacola. "I can't wait to sign that tax cut."

Before traveling to Florida, Trump signed a spending bill Friday to avert a partial government shutdown and keep the federal government running through Dec. 22, when stopgap funding is scheduled to expire. The White House and lawmakers said the extension buys them more time to reach agreement on several end-of-year agenda items, including the budget, a children's health program and aid for hurricane-battered areas of the country.

Trump spent the weekend at his Palm Beach estate, arriving from Pensacola. He was returning to the White House on Sunday night.

Photo credit: Jonathan Bachman/Associated Press