Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., predicted Tuesday that the Republican plan to cut taxes across all income levels will weigh the party down by the time people vote in the mid-term elections in 2018.
"Let me be clear," Schumer said during the Senate Democratic leader's weekly press conference. "This tax bill we be an anchor around the ankles of every Republican."
"If they haven't learned it yet, they're going to learn it next November," Schumer said. "Republicans will rue the day they passed this bill, and the American people will never let them forget it."
Schumer and other Democrats have argued that millions of people would see a tax increase under the bill, but Republicans say they structured it in a way that will lower the tax bills on the vast majority of people.
Schumer's comments came as Republicans passed their tax cut bill out of the House before it moves over to the Senate for passage on Tuesday evening.
Republicans have at least 50 votes in favor of the legislation after Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, announced Monday that they would support the package that emerged from the conference between the two chambers. Despite supporting the bill, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will not be present for the vote as he deals with side effects from his cancer treatment back home in Arizona.
The lone Republican who has not announced his vote is Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who said Monday evening that he was "still looking" at the bill. He voted in favor the package that passed the Senate on Dec. 2.
The remarks also come a week after Democrats pulled off an upset victory in Alabama as Senator-elect Doug Jones defeated Judge Roy Moore, giving Democrats hope in 2018 to potentially retake the Senate.
Once Jones is seated, Republicans will hold a slim 51-49 seat majority in the upper chamber.
