Category: US Senate

Deeply unpopular Congress aims to pass deeply unpopular bill for deeply unpopular president to sign

The following article by Philip Bump was posted on the Washington Post website November 29, 2017:

Republicans are forging ahead with their promise to overhaul the tax code, even with very little public support for their proposal. (Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Something odd is happening on Capitol Hill.

It’s not odd that Republicans are pushing for a tax bill that’s tilted toward business and the wealthy. It’s a return to the argument that benefits at the top trickle down to workers in the form of more jobs and better pay. (Whether this would actually happen is a question of its own.) Republicans control the House, they control the Senate, they control the White House. This tax bill is the Republican agenda, and advancing political priorities when you have the majority is how representative democracy works. Continue reading “Deeply unpopular Congress aims to pass deeply unpopular bill for deeply unpopular president to sign”

Senate Officially Begins Debate on Tax Overhaul Bill

The following article by the Roll Call staff was posted on their website November 29, 2017:

Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

The Senate voted Wednesday to officially begin debating the GOP tax overhaul bill, moving one step closer to a drastic rewrite of the nation’s tax code.

The Senate adopted the motion to proceed to the House-passed tax overhaul bill, 52-48.

The procedural vote had been delayed as senators worked through language that would open a part of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

The chamber will now debate the measure for 20 hours before proceeding to a marathon “vote-a-rama” session, where nearly unlimited amendments can be offered by either party. Continue reading “Senate Officially Begins Debate on Tax Overhaul Bill”

Tax Overhaul’s Arctic Drilling Byrd Problems Resolved

The following article by Niels Lesniewski and Jeremy Dillon was posted on the Roll Call website November 29, 2017:

Senate Republicans, led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, right, have been working through the snags with their tax bill. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

Updated 7:45 p.m. | Most of the focus has been on taxes, but the portion of the Senate reconciliation bill that would open up drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge needed to be revised, too.

Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the fixes that are being worked out for Byrd violations in her portion of the bill would be added to a substitute to be offered by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

“We are finishing up the last of that and expect to have a curative amendment if you will as part of the process going forward,” she said.

Murkowski suggested that provisions of the bill violated the Byrd problem by either not having a budgetary impact or being extraneous in other ways. Continue reading “Tax Overhaul’s Arctic Drilling Byrd Problems Resolved”

What Republicans say when asked why their tax bill benefits the rich most of all

The following article by Jeff Stein was posted on the Washington Post website November 29, 2017:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) holds a news conference to talk about the Republican tax plan. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

A number of studies have made clear that the tax bill Senate Republicans are trying to pass this week offers some of its biggest rewards to wealthy Americans. The GOP’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would cut taxes on wealthy Americans, while raising taxes on those earning between $10,000 and $75,000 over the next decade, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’s official scorekeeper. The Tax Policy Center found that everyone outside the top 5 percent of income earners would see a significantly smaller tax cut in both the short term and the long term.

At a time of high inequality, when many of the economy’s rewards have already flowed to the wealthy, critics of the plan say this is an unnecessary gift. The plan “provide large benefits to the wealthy but little or nothing to everyone else,” says the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-of-center think tank, citing its large corporate tax cut and reduction of the estate tax. An NBC/Wall Street Journal pollfrom September found that 62 percent of Americans think taxes on the wealthy should go up. Twelve percent think they should go down. Continue reading “What Republicans say when asked why their tax bill benefits the rich most of all”

The Tax Bill’s Automatic Spending Cuts

NOTE:  The New York Time’s article has a great interactive graphic at it’s top that we aren’t able to import.

The following article by Margot Sanger-Katz was posted on the New York Times website November 29, 2017:

If Congress passes its tax bill and then takes no other action, the funding for dozens of federal spending programs could be cut — in many cases to nothing — beginning next year.

The cuts would be automatic, the consequence of a 2010 law that Congress passed to keep itself from increasing the deficit too much. Continue reading “The Tax Bill’s Automatic Spending Cuts”

Taxpayers want more fairness. GOP plan to ‘reform’ the tax code doesn’t deliver

The following article by Stephanie Leiser, Lecturer in Public Policy at the University of Michigan, was posted on the Conversation website November 29, 2017:

Credit Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Republicans seem to be operating under the assumption that if the details of their tax “reform” plan are aired for too long, the whole thing might fall apart.

The House passed its version of the most sweeping overhaul of the tax code in a generation on Nov. 16, barely seven weeks since Republicans disclosed their “unified framework.” The last major rewrite, passed in 1986, took two years. Continue reading “Taxpayers want more fairness. GOP plan to ‘reform’ the tax code doesn’t deliver”

Chances for government shutdown rising

The following article by Scott Wong was posted on the Hill website November 28, 2017:

The odds of a government shutdown grew dramatically Tuesday as President Trump tweeted that he saw no path to a year-end deal with Democrats “Chuck and Nancy,” who then promptly backed out of a meeting at the White House.

Shortly after Trump’s “I don’t see a deal!” tweet, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said they didn’t see the point of sitting down with Trump. Continue reading “Chances for government shutdown rising”

“Time is not our friend here”: GOP senator suggests tax bill is in trouble if voters learn about it

The following article by Will Drabold was posted on the mic.com website November 28, 2017:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) holds a news conference to talk about the Republican tax plan. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Amid protest on Capitol Hill, a Republican senator Tuesday afternoon said that the GOP needs to pass its tax bill soon to avoid it being killed by mounting opposition.

“Time is not our friend here,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told a gaggle of reporters on his way to a Senate committee meeting to vote on advancing the GOP tax bill.

“It will only get worse,” Kennedy added, as he pointed at the protesters who briefly shut down the hearing as they chanted about the tax bill’s implications on health care. Continue reading ““Time is not our friend here”: GOP senator suggests tax bill is in trouble if voters learn about it”

Trump Continues to Swipe at Democrats Who Hold Votes He Needs

The following article by John T. Bennett was posted on the Roll Call website November 28, 2017:

Go-it-alone approach could work on taxes, but not government funding

President Donald Trump and GOP leaders are going it alone on their tax effort, but they need Democrats on resolving spending disputes. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

Following on what he called a “love fest” with Senate Republicans at a lunchtime Capitol meeting, President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed momentum on a GOP-led overhaul of the tax code and swiped at Democrats whom he will need to get any sort of resolution to a rapidly approaching standoff over government spending.

After leaving the Capitol and setting up camp at the White House for a meeting initially scheduled among him and the Hill’s top leaders, the president said he was not surprised House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., ended up skipping the meeting at the executive mansion after he tweeted he didn’t see any kind of deal possible.  Continue reading “Trump Continues to Swipe at Democrats Who Hold Votes He Needs”

Trump and Democrats trade insults to start tense month of negotiations on year-end priorities

The following article by Ed O’Keefe and Sean Sullivan was posted on the Washington Post website November 28, 2017:

The top two Congressional Democrats cancelled a planned meeting on Nov. 28 with President Trump after he said he didn’t think they could reach a budget deal. (Reuters)

President Trump and top lawmakers Tuesday failed to craft the outlines of a spending agreement as Democrats backed out of a planned meeting at the White House amid growing acrimony over a slate of year-end legislative priorities, with a potential government shutdown looming over the negotiations.

The impasse all but ensures another holiday-season standoff over legislation designed to keep the government open and that also is expected to settle complex issues regarding immigration and health care. Continue reading “Trump and Democrats trade insults to start tense month of negotiations on year-end priorities”