The Finance 202: Trickle-down economics is back, at least according to Gary Cohn

That's what Gary Cohn -- one of the chief salesman of the Trump administration's sweeping efforts to overhaul the tax code -- told CNBC's John Harwood in an exceptionally revealing interview yesterday that could end up costing Republicans politically in the long term. The House bill -- which got out of the Ways and Means Committee yesterday -- has already been criticized for giving away too much to the wealthy and businesses in lieu of lasting relief to the middle-class.

Senate passes resolution requiring sexual harassment training

The Senate passed a resolution Thursday requiring senators, staff and interns to participate in mandatory sexual harassment training, as lawmakers and staff have grown increasingly outspoken about widespread predatory behavior on Capitol Hill. The resolution, which passed by unanimous consent, marks the first real step either chamber has taken to change training rules on sexual harassment for congressional offices.

Sexual misconduct accusations transform Alabama Senate race

Yet in the span of a tumultuous afternoon, a low-profile special election became a Republican nightmare that threatens a once-safe Senate seat - and offers a new window into ugly divisions that continue to plague the GOP in the age of President Donald Trump. Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, a 70-year-old former state Supreme Court justice, defiantly denied allegations of decades-old sexual misconduct with minors published Thursday in a Washington Post story.

Senate Republicans unveil their own tax plan

Senate Republicans released their own version of a tax plan Thursday, and it varies just enough from the House's bill to set the two chambers up for a dramatic showdown over tax policy in upcoming weeks. The Senate tax bill includes more individual tax brackets than the House bill as well as fully repeals the state and local tax deduction, which has become a must-save item for moderate Republicans in the House.

Ryan getting pressure on DACA

Nearly two dozen House Republicans on Thursday pressed Speaker Paul Ryan to act quickly on legislation that would protect about 800,000 illegal aliens brought to the United States as children. The lawmakers said efforts to grant such deportation protection would easily pass in the House, with dozens in the GOP set to join Democrats in backing such a bill.

Senate tax plan stalls corporate cut a year

Senate Republicans on Thursday unveiled a plan to overhaul the U.S. tax code that would delay an immediate corporate tax cut President Donald Trump has demanded and scrap House Republicans' carefully crafted compromise on a contentious tax deduction. GOP Senate leaders unveiled a tax package that would delay cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent until 2019.

Public Cynicism Enables Costly Political Hypocrisy

The political hypocrisy of crony capitalism - touting market capitalism while making taxpayers fund corporate welfare - is a rare and unfortunate case of bipartisan consensus. Republicans openly embrace it, but many Democrats also fall prey to government-guaranteed corporate capitalism when they believe it to be politically expedient.

Libertarians Have Almost Nothing In Common With the Alt-Right

At Smith College, academic Loretta Ross recently gave a talk on, "Connections Between Far Right, Religious Right, Economic Conservatives, Libertarians, and Traditional Bigotry." Ross is just the latest example of writers and academics who mistakenly conflate libertarianism and the alt-right.

Voices Reform plans are up in the air – ” and so are tax pros

As it has so often in the past, Congress is making the end of the year difficult for accountants and tax practitioners, dragging tax legislation out to the last minute with a maximum of confusion and a minimum of advanced warning. The simultaneous release on Thursday of the Senate's proposals for tax reform and the House Ways and Means Committee's markup of an earlier House bill may bring the tax reform process closer to some kind of end, but they provide few, if any, actionable items for tax professionals to bring to their clients, and in fact may end up threatening the entire reform effort.

Doug Jones: ‘Roy Moore needs to answer these serious charges’

The Democratic opponent of Republican Roy Moore during the Dec. 12 general election had a simple eight word response Thursday to allegations that the former judge behaved inappropriately with teenage girls in the late 1970s. Moore is accused of having sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl in 1979, when he was 32 years old.

GOP leaders bolt from Senate candidate Moore after sex claim

A month before Alabama's special election, Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore abruptly faced allegations Thursday of sexual misconduct with minors decades ago - and an immediate backlash from party leaders who demanded he quit the race if the accusations prove true. The instant fallout followed a Washington Post report in which an Alabama woman said that Moore, then a 32-year-old assistant district attorney, had sexual contact with her when she was 14. Three other women interviewed by the Post said Moore, now 70, also approached them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s.

Va. Republican who leads House Judiciary Committee to retire

File - In this April 4, 2017 file photo, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., speaks during a hearing of the House Judiciary subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations, on Capitol Hill, in Washington. Goodlatte is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a 13-term congressman from Virginia.

Even after GOP electoral rebuff, senate double-downs on tax cut

From left, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, make statements to reporters as work gets underway on the Senate's version of the GOP tax reform bill, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. less From left, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, make statements to reporters as work gets underway on the ... more US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, holds up talking points from the Republican Senate tax reform bill during a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, November 9, 2017.

Senate passes resolution requiring mandatory sexual harassment training

The Senate cleared a resolution on Thursday requiring that all senators and staffers undergo sexual harassment training. The Senate unanimously passed the resolution as part of the chamber's nightly wrap-up amid pressure from senators in both parties to change the chamber's voluntary training policy.

Roy Moore: ‘The transgenders don’t have rights’

Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Alabama, Roy Moore speaks to supporters at an election-night rally on September 26, 2017 in Montgomery, Alabama. Moore, former chief justice of the Alabama supreme court, defeated incumbent Sen. Luther Strange in a primary runoff election for the seat vacated when Jeff Sessions was appointed U.S. Attorney General by President Donald Trump.