Will tax bill help or hurt GOP in 2018?

Washington

A COUPLE with two children from Indiana, where Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly faces a difficult re-election next year, explain to the audience that with combined wages of US$73,000, they stand to save US$2,000 under the Republican tax cuts enacted Wednesday.

A single mother with one child from North Dakota, where Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp is in similar straits as Mr Donnelly, describes how much more of her US$41,000-a-year salary she can keep.

"She looks into the camera and she says: 'Senator Heitkamp, maybe US$1,300 is not a lot of money to you. But for me it's a 73 per cent reduction in my tax bill.'"

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican-Kentucky, was reading from a memo he had just pulled from his coat pocket listing ideas fo…