A Joint Committee on taxation analysis predicts the tax bill would increase the deficit by $1 trillion, which could be problematic for lawmakers like Sen. Bob Corker, who has said he would vote against a tax bill that increased the deficit. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo Republicans rewriting tax bill hours before possible vote Senate GOP leaders are still making major changes to the plan in order to win over several hold-outs. 
 
 Senate Republicans are frantically re-writing their massive tax overhaul to win over wavering senators just hours before a potential vote. 
 
 GOP leaders had hoped to pass the bill late Thursday night or early Friday morning, but were forced to delay action after a ruling by the Senate parliamentarian threw out a crucial provision to prevent hundreds of billions in deficit spending. But in good news for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.), two holdouts, said they would back the bill Friday morning after getting assurances the bill would change to their liking. 
 
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 It’s still not clear when the Senate will vote — or what they’ll actually be voting on, as key pieces of the multi-trillion-dollar bill are being rewritten in hopes of getting a major legislative victory to President Donald Trump’s desk by Christmas. 
 
 Republicans were sent scrambling after the Senate parliamentarian told GOP senators Thursday that a key proposal for deficit hawks — a trigger to raise tax rates if sufficient economic growth did not materialize — would not pass procedural muster and would need to find something else to satisfy the bloc of deficit hawk holdouts, led by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). 
 
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 “It doesn’t look like the trigger is going to work, according to the parliamentarian,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said. “So we have an alternative, frankly: a tax increase we don’t want to do to try to address Sen. Corker’s concerns.” 
 
 Corker told reporters: “My understanding is, that the parliamentarian has ruled against it so they’re just going to automatically put [tax increases] in, period.” Corker and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said the revenue raised with tax increases — which senators say would kick in six years after the enactment of the tax legislation — would total about $350 billion, although Cornyn suggested that figure may need to go higher. 
 
 Late Thursday, Republicans huddled with leadership and tax policy staff to work on a solution. 
 
 Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who supports the current package, estimated that Republicans needed to find an additional $370 billion to $400 billion within their package to placate concerns about increased deficits. 
 
 "What we're trying to do right now is get to the point where nobody's going to get exactly what they want but enough for us to get the bill passed," he told reporters. 
 
 The sudden need to regroup came after extended drama on the Senate floor Thursday during an otherwise mundane procedural vote, when Corker, Flake and Johnson initially withheld their support on a vote to move forward with the bill. Ultimately, they aligned with their party, but it suggested real concerns remained, including friction among Republicans over whether to stick to the 20 percent corporate tax rate rate insisted on by the White House. 
 
 Johnson withheld his vote during the standoff in exchange for votes on his amendments, including one that would further increase a tax deduction for pass-through businesses to around 25 percent. 
 
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 The legislation would slash the corporate tax rate and lower rates for many, though not all, individuals. Senate Republicans have said their plan would boost the economy but not by nearly as much as some lawmakers would have hoped, a new official analysis shows. 
 
 The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation said Thursday that the GOP plan would fall well short of covering its $1.5 trillion cost through additional economic growth; it predicted $407 billion in additional revenue would come in by boosting the economy by 0.8 percent over the next decade. 
 
 That would mean a $1 trillion deficit increase, which is problematic for lawmakers like Corker, who has said he would vote against a tax bill that increased the deficit. A Senate Finance Committee aide noted that the analysis was "incomplete" since the bill text has yet to be finalized. 
 
 Democrats have blasted Republicans for rushing the bill to the floor while considering significant eleventh-hour changes to the sprawling tax code rewrite. 
 
 “This is tax, one of the most complicated issues before us,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the floor Thursday. “These changes and the way the majority leader is handling this make it impossible for any independent analyst to get a good look at the bill and how it would impact our country.” 
 
 Yet Sen. John McCain, who gave Republicans a boost earlier in the day when he broke his long silence and said he would back the legislation, signaled he was satisfied with the process, noting the bill went through “a thorough markup in the Senate Finance Committee.” 
 
 The Arizona Republican, who helped tank the party’s Obamacare repeal efforts earlier this year, had said going through a regular legislative process was one of his major concerns. 
 
 But it was clear Senate Republicans still have myriad issues to resolve to lock down at least 50 votes to ensure final passage of the tax bill on the floor. Republicans are using powerful budget procedures to avoid a Democratic filibuster. 
 
 Other key GOP votes such as Corker, Flake and Susan Collins of Maine have yet to commit to the bill, for varying reasons. Johnson and Daines have been trying to secure even more generous treatment of small businesses after extracting a boost in an earlier round of negotiations. 
 
 Collins plans to offer a half-dozen amendments, including one that would hike the proposed corporate tax rate of 20 percent to restore a deduction for up to $10,000 for property taxes. She is among a handful of Republican senators who say they are open to raising the proposed corporate rate in order to fund other tax provisions in the bill. 
 
 The moderate senator is also seeking to extract some health care assurances because the current tax bill repeals Obamacare's requirement that everyone carry insurance or pay a penalty. She has pushed for two separate health care bills — one to stabilize the markets and another to protect pre-existing conditions and use high-risk pools — to be grafted to a short-term spending bill that would need to pass before government funding expires Dec. 8. 
 
 Conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus, a group of about 40 Republicans that frequently buck their party's leadership, rejected the notion of supporting those health care bills. 
 
 Members of the group also said they opposed amendments that would raise the proposed corporate income tax rate above 20 percent, and bristled at the idea of a delayed cut, which the Senate's bill does largely due to budgetary rules. 
 
 "It's a great strategy if you’re looking to put the Democrats in the majority and give them credit for what we did," Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said of the Senate's proposed one-year delay to a corporate tax cut. 
 
 Brian Faler, Bernie Becker and Elana Schor contributed to this report. ||||| Pausing for a reporter's question, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and other senators squeeze into an elevator as they rush to the chamber to vote on amendments as the Republican leadership works to craft... (Associated Press) 
 
 Pausing for a reporter's question, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and other senators squeeze into an elevator as they rush to the chamber to vote on amendments as the Republican leadership works to craft their sweeping tax bill, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2017. It would mark the... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans are stepping quickly to meet competing demands of holdout GOP senators for a tax overhaul package expected to add $1 trillion to the nation's deficit over 10 years. 
 
 The Republicans eye a crucial final vote Friday on the $1.4 trillion Senate bill carrying the hopes of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party to preserve their majorities in next year's elections. 
 
 Amid a whirl of meetings and dramatic votes Thursday evening, the Senate GOP leaders rewrote the bill behind closed doors. They weighed scaling back the tax cuts in the legislation to secure crucial support. 
 
 The leaders were making major changes up to the last minute, including one that would roll back some of the tax cuts after six years to appease deficit hawks — notably Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona. 
 
 Another faction to be reckoned with: senators supporting millions of businesses whose owners report the firm's profits on their individual tax returns. The vast majority of U.S. businesses, big and small, are taxed this way. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., backed the tax legislation Wednesday after securing an increase in the deduction for business income from 17.4 percent to 20 percent. 
 
 But Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said Thursday that he is still withholding support for the bill because he'd like the deduction boosted to 25 percent. 
 
 The scramble to alter the bill came after the Senate's parliamentarian ruled that automatic "triggers" designed to guard against big deficits would violate Senate rules. GOP leaders' main concern was winning over the hawks worried about adding more red ink to the mounting $20 trillion deficit. 
 
 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had expressed confidence early in the day, but he has little margin for error with a 52-48 Republican majority. He can afford to lose only two votes while counting on Vice President Mike Pence to break the tie. 
 
 Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said the bill will have "alternative, frankly, tax increases we don't want to do" to address deficit concerns. 
 
 Flake said the "trigger" tax increases would raise about $350 billion over 10 years, though he didn't specify which taxes would go up. 
 
 In a dramatic turn, Democrats forced a vote on whether to return the measure to the Senate Finance Committee so it could be rewritten to ensure smaller deficits. After holding out for nearly an hour during the vote, Corker, Flake and Johnson eventually joined fellow Republicans to scuttle the Democratic proposal. 
 
 Corker has pushed to add automatic tax increases in future years if the package doesn't raise as much revenue as projected. 
 
 With the provision seemingly dead, Corker said senators would change the bill to roll back some of the tax cuts in future years, regardless of whether tax revenues meet expectations. Flake said the tax increases would take affect after six years. 
 
 The overall legislation would bring the first overhaul of the U.S. tax code in 31 years. It would slash the corporate tax rate, offer more modest cuts for families and individuals and eliminate several popular deductions. 
 
 Unlike the tax bill passed by the House two weeks ago, the Senate measure would end the requirement in President Barack Obama's health care law that people pay a tax penalty if they don't buy health insurance. 
 
 The tax cuts for individuals in the Senate plan would expire in 2026 while the corporate tax cuts would be permanent. 
 
 Both the House and Senate bills would nearly double the standard deduction to around $12,000 for individuals and about $24,000 for married couples. 
 
 After Senate passage, lawmakers will try to reconcile the Senate bill with the House version in hopes of delivering a first major legislative accomplishment to Trump by Christmas. 
 
 A new analysis by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation found that the Senate bill would add $1 trillion to the deficit over a decade. 
 
 The bill would increase economic growth, generating an additional $458 billion in tax revenue, according to the analysis. That's far short of the $2 trillion promised by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. 
 
 Two Republican senators, John McCain of Arizona and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, announced their support for the tax package Thursday, giving it a major boost. The two had voted against the GOP bill to dismantle the Obama health care law this past summer. 
 
 Senators were still grappling with several issues, including a provision to add a deduction for local property taxes. The current Senate bill completely eliminates the federal deduction for state and local taxes, a popular benefit in the Democratic-leaning states of New York, New Jersey, California and Illinois as well as many wealthy suburbs nationwide. 
 
 Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, proposed an amendment to let homeowners deduct up to $10,000 in local property taxes on their federal returns. It's similar to a provision in the House-passed bill. Without the deduction, Collins said, it would be "very problematic for me" to vote for the bill. 
 
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 Associated Press writers Alan Fram and Andrew Taylor contributed to this report. 
 
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 Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter at http://twitter.com/stephenatap
– A planned vote on Senate Republicans' overhaul of the tax code was called off Thursday night as they struggled to find 50 votes—and an extra $400 billion or so. Senators say deficit hawks led by Tennessee's Sen. Bob Corker have delayed the bill's progress by insisting it doesn't drive up the nation's deficit, Politico reports. Earlier Thursday, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation released estimates saying that despite sweeping cuts, the tax overhaul wouldn't stimulate economic growth as much as earlier predicted, meaning it would add an estimated $1 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, reports the Washington Post. GOP leaders rewrote the $1.4 trillion tax bill behind closed doors in an effort to add $400 billion in revenue, changing it so that some tax cuts were rolled back after six years, the AP reports. Corker had suggested a "trigger" that would raise taxes if deficit targets were not met, but this was deemed to be against Senate procedural rules. Sen. Jeff Flake joined Corker as a deficit holdout while Sen. Ron Johnson demanded a better deal for "pass-through" businesses that pay tax under the individual code. With Senate leaders hoping for a final vote on the legislation Friday, Sen. Susan Collins is also seen as a potential holdout, though Sen. John McCain has given the overhaul the thumbs-up. Collins, unlike most of her colleagues, has said she is open to raising the proposed corporate tax rate above 20%. If the tax bill does make it through the Senate, the next step will be to try to reconcile with the House version in the hopes of handing President Trump a bill to sign before Christmas.