THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

And despite an approval rate almost as bad as Donald Trump, the Republican tax bill continues on to the inevitable Republican Party suicide that is its passage. If you are not very wealthy or incorporated, there is little or nothing that will please you.

Republican and Democratic senators clashed on Wednesday morning over changes the Republicans made to their sweeping tax legislation late Tuesday night, as the momentum behind the tax overhaul showed no signs of slowing with votes expected in both chambers of Congress later this week.

Democrats attacked Republicans for inserting a repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that most people have health insurance into the tax bill and for imposing a 2025 expiration date for individual tax cuts, while making the corporate tax cuts permanent.

“This bill seems to get worse by the hour,” said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. “This is not just another garden variety attack on the Affordable Care Act, this is a repeal of that law.”

Repealing the health law’s so-called individual mandate allows Republicans to save more than $300 billion over 10 years. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 13 million fewer people would be insured after a decade without the mandate and health insurance premiums would rise by about 10 percent per year over that time.

Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, the Republican chairman of the finance committee, downplayed the move to make the individual tax cuts temporary, not mentioning that change in an opening statement in which he defended his party’s right to undo the mandate. He later suggested that Republicans would be unlikely to resist if Democrats wanted to help them make those cuts permanent after they expire.

So far the only good thing about the bill is that the House and Senate have not agreed on what should be in it.