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Republican Sen. Marco Rubio declared Thursday he will vote against the GOP'S sweeping tax package unless negotiators expand its child tax credit, jeopardizing the Republicans' razor-thin margin as they try to muscle the $1.5 trillion bill through Congress next week. Rubio wants to increase the portion of the basic $2,000-per-child tax credit that would go to low-income families.
Conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus said Thursday they support a sweeping tax package speeding toward votes in Congress next week, giving GOP leaders a boost from a key faction as they work to deliver a major legislative victory to President Donald Trump. "I think it's going to pass.
The House on Thursday passed a stopgap spending bill to prevent a government shutdown this weekend and buy time for challenging talks on a wide range of unfinished business on Capitol Hill. The measure passed mostly along party lines, 235-193, and would keep the government running through Dec. 22. The Senate was expected to swiftly approve the measure as early as Thursday night and send it to President Donald Trump.
The government runs out of funding on Friday and as of Wednesday afternoon neither the House or the Senate had voted on a bill to keep it open. In this Nov. 18, 2016, photo, the U.S. Capitol dome is seen at sunset on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the conservative Freedom Caucus, arrives for a closed-door strategy session with House Republicans as the deadline looms to pass a spending bill to fund the government by week's end, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017. The White House says President Donald Trump "looks forward" to meeting congressional leaders Thursday to address budget differences and avoid a partial government shutdown this weekend.
From left, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., meet with reporters after House Republicans held a closed-door strategy session as the deadline looms to pass a spending bill to fund the government by week's end, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017.
House GOP conservatives may be making headway in their effort to keep the government open through Dec. 30 instead of setting up a pre-Christmas deadline for a potential bipartisan budget deal. Conservative Rep. Mark Meadows is among those who worry that the leadership's proposed Dec. 22 deadline might set up Republicans for a fleecing at the hands of Democrats.
Hours after the pre-dawn passage of a $1.5 trillion tax cut, President Donald Trump suggested for the first time Saturday that he would consider a higher corporate rate than the one Senate Republicans had just endorsed, in remarks that could complicate sensitive negotiations to pass a final bill. On his way to New York for three fundraisers, Trump told reporters that the corporate tax rate in the GOP plan might end up rising to 22 percent from 20 percent.
President Trump's team hopes to finish the third round of the congressional debate over tax reform by year's end, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin emphasized Saturday. "I look forward to working with the House and Senate to send legislation to the president's desk this month," Mnuchin said.
Amid pressure from within the Republican Party to step aside, GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore on Sunday night called a newspaper report carrying allegations he had sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl four decades ago "fake news" and said a lawsuit would be filed in response. Moore's condemnation of a Washington Post story during a campaign speech in Huntsville, Alabama, came hours after another fellow Republican, Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, urged him to drop out of a special election for one of Alabama's Senate seats.
Republican Sen. Pat Toomey urged Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore on Sunday to drop out of the race, adding to the party's growing disavowal of the controversial judge in a pivotal election following allegations that he initiated sexual contact with a 14-year old girl decades ago. Toomey said Moore's explanations have been inadequate so far in response to The Washington Post report last week and that Republicans should consider current Sen. Luther Strange as a write-in candidate to run against Moore.
Wouldn't it be nice to have a tax code that looked as though it had been designed on purpose? Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., uses charts to contest the Republican version of tax reform, during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017. Washington a The Republicans' tax bill would somewhat improve the existing revenue system that once caused Mitch Daniels to say: Wouldn't it be nice to have a tax code that looked as though it had been designed on purpose? Today's bill, which is 429 pages and is apt to grow, is an implausible instrument of simplification.
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 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.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., walks through Statuary Hall to his office on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Ryan introduced a far-reaching tax overhaul Thursday that will be a priority for the GOP.
House conservatives want the repeal of Obamacare's individual mandate included in tax legislation, but some are shying away from saying that inclusion is critical to their support. The comments come as the House's chief tax writer Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said Friday that he is considering including repeal in the bill, which currently doesn't contain it.
President Donald Trump listens during a meeting on tax policy with business leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday in Washington. WASHINGTON >> House Republicans would preserve the popular retirement account for middle-class Americans while limiting a cherished deduction for homeowners in a sweeping tax cut plan unveiled Thursday that would add $1.5 trillion to the nation's debt.
House Republicans would leave intact current tax rules on retirement accounts popular with middle class Americans and maintain a top income tax rate for million-dollar earners as negotiators scrambled to finalize the first major overhaul in three decades. The legislation is a long-standing goal for Capitol Hill Republicans who see a once-in-a-generation opportunity to clean up an inefficient, loophole-cluttered tax code.
As reported by Jon Street , yesterday we learned that Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander and Democrat Sen. Patty Murray reached a "bipartisan deal to continue Cost Reduction Subsidies for ObamaCare." During remarks last night at the Heritage Foundation, President Donald J. Trump seemed to support the Alexander/Murray deal.
Republican and Democratic senators joined in announcing a plan Tuesday aimed at stabilizing America's health insurance markets in the wake of President Donald Trump's order to terminate "Obamacare" subsidies. Trump himself spoke approvingly of the deal, but some conservatives denounced it as an insurance company bailout, making its future uncertain.