With Americans now "stuck with Obamacare for the foreseeable future", attention shifts to Trump's next agenda item: tax reform. This was confirmed by none other than the President himself who moments ago said that "Republicans will probably work on tax reform now." To be sure, following today's embarrassing fiasco, Trump will be eager to move on to a law which will be easier to pass, and according to market consensus, tax reform is precisely that. Alas, consensus may once again be wrong. Ignoring the fact that work on tax reform in earnest won't start for 6-8 weeks as House Ways and Means member Merchant said moments ago, and may not even take place until fiscal 2018 (after August), the reality is that since Obamacare and tax reform are both parts of the Reconciliation process, as a result of not freeing up hundreds of billions from the deficit that the CBO estimated repealing Obamacare would do, it means that Trump's tax cuts have been hobbled - by as much as $500 billion - before even starting. Furthermore, with the Freedom Caucus flexing its muscle and openly defying Trump, another major headache for Trump's tax reform is that the Bordere Adjustment Tax - an aspect of the reform that the Caucus has been vocally against - is likely off the table. And since BAT was expected to generate over $1 trillion in government revenues, it means that a matched amount in tax cuts is also now off the table. In summary, between Obamacare repeal and BAT being scrapped, roughly $1.5 trillion in budget "buffers" are wiped out. And yet, when news hit that Obamacare repeal has failed, stocks surged, arguably on traders' belief that this will accelerate tax reform. Alas, in addition to the above, Axios lists another four reasons why today's healthcare debacle spells trouble for tax reform. We now know that Congressional Republicans are willing to buck Trump and leadership on big-ticket legislative items. Republicans will need to keep working on healthcare reform, even though Trump says that he's done with it. They've campaigned for years on killing Obamacare, and can't head into the mid-terms without giving it another go. Particularly when they keep insisting that the current scheme is collapsing? CBO said that the Republican healthcare bill would shrink long-term budget deficits by hundreds of billions of dollars. Without it, filling the tax revenue hole becomes harder. Sean Spicer today said repeatedly that Trump had talked to "everyone" and listened to "all" ideas, which reflects zero consideration of Congressional Democrats. If such sentiment persists ? it just raises the degree of difficulty for tax reform, particularly if the White House doesn't change its position on keeping corporate tax reform tied to personal tax reform. Finally, here is Goldman's timeline: "Our current expectation is that tax reform will be enacted in Q4 2017, with a clear risk that it slips to early 2018." If today's events are any indication, don't hold your breath for a law being concluded this calendar year.