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In a campaign stop in Montana, President Donald Trump targeted Democrat Jon Tester on Thursday in a bid to get more Republicans elected to the Senate but also to punish the lawmaker he blames for derailing his nominee to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. Appearing in a state he dominated in 2016, Trump cast Tester as a "liberal Democrat," railing against his voting record on issues like abortion, immigration and taxes.
On a Tuesday evening in February 2017, I stood up on the floor of the U.S. Senate and launched into a review of the record of President Donald Trump's nominee for Attorney General, Senator Jeff Sessions. Part way into my speech, I started reading a letter written by Coretta Scott King.
There will be a lot of chest-pounding from members of Congress in the next two weeks as they take their long spring break from what they facetiously refer to as "governing." They'll be crowing about what slices of pork in the $1.3 trillion short-term budget measure they brought home - and what riders they slapped on the 2,232-page omnibus bill.
Approved in the dead of night, when virtually nobody was watching, the biggest change in U.S. tax law in decades included last-minute revisions that skewed the bill even more toward the rich. historians write about the broader atrophy of the American system of governance, the passage of the 2017 tax-reform bill will be an illuminating event to dwell upon.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, left, walks with Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., as they head to the Senate chamber after a closed-door meeting with Republican lawmakers to advance the GOP overhaul of the tax code, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Dec. 1, 2017. Over the next decade, their tax plan would add at least $1 trillion to the national debt.
Telling reporters we have the votes, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., walks to the chamber after a closed-door meeting with Republican lawmakers to advance the stalled GOP overhaul of the tax code, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Dec. 1, 2017. Telling reporters we have the votes, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., walks to the chamber after a closed-door meeting with Republican lawmakers to advance the stalled GOP overhaul of the tax code, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Dec. 1, 2017.
President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans are scrambling to change a Republican tax... . Pausing for a reporter's question, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and other senators squeeze into an elevator as they rush to the chamber to vote on amendments as the Republican leadership works to craft their sweeping tax ... .
The change was a key last-minute revision to the bill meant to gain the votes of Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Steve Daines of Montana. Republicans will increase the size of the one-time tax on overseas corporate earnings to pay for bigger small business tax breaks in their tax bill, several senators said Friday.
Republican senators say tax reform would benefit small businesses but their true goal is to help the biggest firms, a fact dramatically illustrated by a Republican-on-Republican policy fight this week. The legislation would reduce the top corporate tax rate, the one paid by the largest publicly-traded companies, from 35 to 20 percent.
Hours before Senate Republicans were scheduled to vote on a tax proposal that doesn't technically exist in final legislative form, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell strode to the floor McConnell was foiled over the summer and fall by the GOP effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, suffering a number of embarrassing defeats that illustrated his inability to wrangle the Republican Senate conference. Tax reform would be different, promised McConnell and other GOP leaders.
Really? It didn't look that way yesterday evening when three of their Republican colleagues nearly derailed the tax reform bill on a procedural vote. After intense negotiations this morning and a little horse-trading, though, John Cornyn told reporters that GOP leadership have 50 votes whipped for the bill's final vote, expected later today or early tomorrow: Pressed if that means GOP leadership has the 50 votes needed to let Vice President Pence break a tie, he added "yes."
Senate Republicans are stepping quickly to meet competing demands of holdout GOP senators for a tax overhaul package expected to add $1 trillion to the nation's deficit over 10 years. The Republicans eye a crucial final vote Friday on the $1.4 trillion Senate bill carrying the hopes of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party to preserve their majorities in next year's elections.
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump watch performances during the National Christmas Tree lighting ceremony at the Ellipse near the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2017. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump watch performances during the National Christmas Tree lighting ceremony at the Ellipse near the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2017.
Daines previously had held out because, he said, the bill did not do enough to provide tax cuts to non-corporate businesses relative to big C corporations, which the bill would give a 20 percent tax rate. Montana's Steve Daines, one of only two announced "no" votes on the Senate Republican tax bill, said he would support the motion to proceed to the legislation, and said his criticisms about the bill's small business provisions had been addressed.
With 2018 just around the corner, President Trump and Republican leaders in Congress are desperate to deliver their first major legislative victory to their base and donors: an overhaul of the U.S. tax code that they're pushing through the Senate this week. While the party's top brass is trying to portray a unified front, huge hurdles remain to getting many rank-and-file Republicans on board with the proposal that seems to be changing hourly.
Sen. Ron Johnson watched angrily last fall as his fellow Republicans gave up on his reelection campaign, convinced he was doomed and that their dollars and hours would be better spent elsewhere. A year later, Johnson is still in the Senate but also a key holdout vote in the Republican effort to overhaul the tax code - and those political calculations, along with the ill will they bred, are coming back to haunt Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his fellow heads of the GOP.
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER and MARCY GORDON Associated Press WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans are considering a trigger that would automatically increase taxes if their sweeping legislation fails to generate as much revenue as they expect.
Republicans are trying to get their plan to overhaul the US tax system through the US Senate this week, but with 52 members in the chamber, GOP leaders can afford to lose only two votes. Two Republican senators have identified themselves as nos: Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Steve Daines of Montana.
An upcoming ruling by California's highest court could dramatically reduce the power of organized farm labor in the state. While some sexual harassment victims feel emboldened to speak up, many choose to stay silent.
Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore declined Friday to rule out that he may have dated girls in their late teens when he was in his 30s, though he said he did not remember any such encounters and described such behavior as inappropriate. "If I did, I'm not going to dispute these things, but I don't remember anything like that," Moore said on Sean Hannity's radio program, when asked whether he had dated 17- or 18-year-old girls at the time.