Cutting Taxes Will Be Harder Than Trump Thinks

On most Tuesdays, known around Capitol Hill as “fly-in day,” House Ways and Means chairman Kevin Brady holds a quickie media gaggle outside his office, providing reporters the chance to grill him about the coming week’s hot issues.

Increasingly, that means one thing: tax reform.

With the failure to repeal Obamacare, an overhaul of the tax code has assumed do-or-die urgency for Republicans. “Failure,” conference members are endlessly insisting, “is not an option.”

This is nonsense, of course. Failure is always an option—especially in Congress. And with every tick of the clock, Republicans grow more anxious about the debate. It helps no one’s nerves that there still isn’t plan on the table, the president is making unrealistic demands (a 15 percent corporate rate?!), the White House economics team is short on tax-policy knowledge, and some House conservatives