WASHINGTON _ Sen. Claire McCaskill attended a dinner on Monday hosted by President Donald Trump's daughter and son-in-law to discuss the administration's tax overhaul efforts _ but still wasn't embracing the GOP tax plan.
McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat and member of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, also was invited to the White House Wednesday along with other committee members for further talks.
McCaskill has said she wants to work with Trump on overhauling the country's tax system. But she's been critical of the administration's current proposal, which she likened to controversial supply-side tax cuts championed by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback in neighboring Kansas.
McCaskill was one of three Democrats at the dinner, along with Sens. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., according to a source familiar with the dinner. All three face tough re-election battles in 2018 in states Trump won in November.
Also attending were members of the Trump administration and Republican Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada, Mike Lee of Utah, David Perdue of Georgia, Marco Rubio of Florida and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, the source said.
McCaskill told reporters on Tuesday that the dinner at the Kushner's Washington, D.C., home went "fine" but no agreements were reached.
"We tried to make it really clear that it was very difficult to discuss what, if anything, we could agree to when they don't have a plan," McCaskill said. "We've got to see what their plan is."
She said the lawmakers raised several issues with the administration's tax proposal, and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin would respond, "'Well, yeah, we're going to change that,' or 'Yes, we're going to change that,' or 'Yes, we're going to do that.'"
McCaskill said: "It's hard to hit a moving target if you don't know what the actual provisions are going to be. They keep talking about simplifying, but we've got no provisions in writing that would simplify."
The issues that Democrats raised included Republican plans to change the tax rate for pass-through entities such as limited liability companies and limited partnerships to 25 percent, a big tax reduction, McCaskill said. She said 80 percent of the benefit of the pass-through cut "will go to millionaires and above."
McCaskill said attendees at the dinner also talked about the child tax credit.
"There was discussion about they were going to really pump up the child tax credit, make it refundable and make it go higher in terms of who could benefit from it, but there was no real solid proposal there and certainly no real solid indication of how it was going to be paid for," McCaskill said.
McCaskill added that dinner seemed like a sincere effort to reach out to the other side. She said she believes the administration is interested in getting Democratic votes.
"I'm going to take them at their word, they really want to discuss it," she said. "But two major problems: One is that there's a lack of trust at this point because so much of this has been done behind closed doors, with just Republicans and the reconciliation process, etcetera, and secondly, they have no firm proposal that we can even talk about."
Reconciliation is a legislative maneuver that allows the Senate to proceed with 51 votes, instead of the 60 often needed. Republicans control 52 of the Senate's 100 seats.
McCaskill praised the food served at the dinner and the Kushners' family home. "They were very nice," she said. "Her son was adorable."
Everyone at the dinner was saying the right things, McCaskill said.
"But then I think they're going to vote on a process that will allow them to do it with 50 votes," McCaskill said. "So there's kind of a disconnect between some of the rhetoric and the reality. Yeah, in a perfect world, I think they'd love to have a bipartisan bill, but it feels like they're trying to get this done without us. That's the perception that's out there and we talked about that."
