Conservative Split Over Import Tax Imperils Trump’s Reform Goal -<br />By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and ALAN RAPPEPORTAPRIL 1, 2017<br />One conservative group produced colorful flow charts warning millennials<br />that a “border adjustment” tax proposed by Speaker Paul D. Ryan would raise prices on “the Jose Cuervo tequila that’s in your happy hour margarita.”<br />Three days later, a second conservative group kicked off a lobbying campaign saying<br />it would amount to a $1.2 trillion tax on seniors and the working poor.<br />For Mr. Ryan, who holds more conventional free-trade views than Mr. Trump, the new tax provides a way to satisfy<br />Mr. Trump’s protectionist impulses without imposing punitive, and potentially even more disruptive, tariffs.<br />Both the Club for Growth and the Koch network also played a critical role in killing a proposal backed by Mr. Ryan<br />and Mr. Trump to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
