By John Dempsey, WLS-AM News

(CHICAGO) West Suburban Republican Congressman Peter Roskam says he believes his party can put aside it’s differences and pass a tax reform bill.   Roskam, who sits on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, told “The Big John and Ramblin’ Ray Show” on WLS, that even though two Republican Senators oppose to the tax bill that recently passed the House, those differences are not fatal to the bill.

“There’s differences but it’s not like it can’t be brought together” said Roskam, “It’s a matter of negotiating some of these numbers, looking at each other’s proposals, and coming up with common ground.”

The Senate Budget Committee will consider the tax proposal Tuesday afternoon.   GOP Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Steve Daines of Montana, and Bob Corker of Tennessee have all said they have concerns about the bill.     Two of them are on the Budget Committee.    Republicans hold a 12-11 advantage on the committee. That means if just one of those senators decides to vote against the proposal in committee, it will stall.

CNN quotes several GOP sources who say there has been no indication Johnson will back off his threat that he’ll vote against the proposal if he doesn’t get what he wants on changes to how the plan addresses the tax rate on pass-through income.

Republicans hold a 52 to 48 advantage over Democrats in the Senate and can only afford to lose two votes.    However Roskam tells WLS he still thinks a deal can be worked out because the current tax code is unpopular.

“There’s nobody that’s defending the status quo of the tax code really.   Nobody likes it.  And that’s so different than the health care debate that we just went through where you have strong feelings defending Obamacare and so forth.  In this thing nobody likes our tax code.  People like certain elements of it.  I’ll stipulate to that,  but nobody likes the whole thing.”

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