Tax bills that end deductions/cut benefits are tough to pass. How did House do it? 1/x
Improving party brand seems to have helped overcome aversion to imposing costs on key constituencies (Cox/McCubbins 2005) 2/x
Ryan, Brady, other coalition leaders helped by framing the vote & using speed & lack of transparency to "hide" costs (Arnold 1990) 3/x
But one danger is that Senate won't act, which = tough vote for no policy gain 4/x
Also murky whether bill would improve GOP brand enough to overcome voter anger at loss of valued deductions 5/x
GOP also operates with narrow margin for success when acting absent consent of minority party 6/x
But when parties act as teams (Lee 2009), party brand and "motivating the base" may trump individual district concerns 7/x
Moral: risky votes are possible in a polarized Congress w/help from leaders & belief in power of party brand, but they are still risky. 8/8
