GOP Senators Stunned by Terrible Rule in Budget Bill They Voted For

In the latest installment in “Dude, What Law Did I Just Pass?” some Republicans were shocked to learn of a provision in Donald Trump’s behemoth budget bill that will tax gambling losses, HuffPost reported Tuesday.

Under the new provision, gamblers will no longer be allowed to deduct 100 percent of their losses from their income tax, and instead will only be allowed to deduct 90 percent. “Now, for example, gamblers who win $100,000 but lose $100,000—coming out even—would still be required to pay taxes on $10,000,” according to HuffPost.

The provision was apparently added at the last minute by Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Republican senators, who had been in a mad rush to see Trump’s tax and spending legislation passed by the Fourth of July, admitted that they didn’t know what the provision was.

“If you’re asking me how it got in there, no, I don’t know,” said Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley during an interview on Tuesday.

Texas Senator John Cornyn admitted, “I don’t know anything about it. I’m not sure what it does.”

“I was so focused on Medicaid, I wasn’t looking for other reasons to be against the bill,” said North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, one of just three Republicans to vote against the bill. “But that would be another one.”

Already, bipartisan efforts have sprung up in the House and Senate on provisions to repeal the rule, concerned that it will attract big bettors to black-market gambling in an attempt to escape the rule.