What's in GOP Tax Bill? 'We Don't Know'

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady said the GOP's ‘once-in-a-generation' tax bill will be released next Wednesday.  And what's in this ‘historic' bill?  Who knows… Republican Leaders are writing their tax bill with such secrecy even Brady's GOP colleagues literally don't know what's in it.

Bloomberg: Secrecy, Division, Complaints: GOP Tax Rollout Echoes Obamacare Repeal

"We don't know the brackets," Representative Chris Collins of New York, a Trump ally, told reporters after a Republican conference meeting Tuesday. "We don't know where we are on estate taxes. We don't know where we are on" the state and local tax deduction -- a contentious issue for members like Collins from high-tax states.

"We don't know where we are on the size of the child tax credit," he continued. "We don't know, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know."

Bloomberg: Tax Plan Has Lobbyists Swarming, Lawmakers Asking What's in It?

… Even Republican members of Brady's committee say they don't know whether any decisions have been made.

"The problem is that Ways and Means has somewhat been kept out of the loop with details," Representative Jim Renacci of Ohio, a member of the House tax-writing panel, said in an interview. "There are still a lot of hurdles to get it done."

The bill is supposed to be released in just five days.

Wall Street Journal: GOP's Strategy on Tax Plan Raises Concerns of Health-Overhaul Replay

The effort to overturn the 2010 Affordable Care Act collapsed after GOP lawmakers wrote the legislation behind closed doors and depended solely on votes from their own party to pass the bill. When three of them balked, the measure failed since no Democrat supported it.

Republicans are taking that same approach on the tax package—despite efforts by some Democrats to engage in the process, according to lawmaker interviews.

"One of the things that typically you do in governing is you reach consensus but you use both sides of the aisle to do so," said Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.).

Here's what we do know: the GOP tax plan is a bad deal that will raise taxes on millions of America's hard-working middle class families.  Enough with the secret negotiations and dark room deals.  The American people deserve a transparent process with open hearings and full debates on real, bipartisan tax reform.