Dems aim to turn tax plan into cudgel in 2018 midterms new

One of her counterparts in California dismisses estimates of tax savings for most U.S. households and says the legislation is "just putting money in the pocket of the wealthy." And in Kansas, a Democratic candidate for governor says it's "a recipe for disaster" that previews inevitable cuts to popular programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Brainerd area politicos sound off on tax bill

The tax reform bill recently passed by Washington lawmakers will be either a boon or a curse when it's signed into law, depending on which side of the aisle is doing the talking. The median combined household income for the 8th District is $53,000 annually, but analysts agreed the bill would cause taxes to go up for most people with incomes under $70,000, he said.

Planned Parenthood: Arkansas faces having 1 abortion clinic

A Planned Parenthood subsidiary told the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday that Arkansas' restrictions on how abortion pills are administered could effectively end medication abortions in the state and leave Arkansas with only one clinic where women can end their pregnancies. Under an Arkansas law passed in 2015, doctors who provide abortion pills must hold a contract with another physician who has admitting privileges at a hospital and who would agree to handle complications.

In partial defense of Susan Collins, on the tax bill

Maine Sen. Susan Collins complained Tuesday that coverage of her role in crafting the Republican tax bill had been "unbelievably sexist" and had failed to note the ways in which she had gotten the law shaped to her liking. I think she has a point that the coverage has painted her as less successful in the tax negotiations than she really was.

More than 4 in 5 enrolled in ‘Obamacare’ are in Trump states

Americans in states that Donald Trump carried in his march to the White House account for more than 4 in 5 of those signed up for coverage under the health care law the president still wants to take down. An Associated Press analysis of new figures from the government found that 7.3 million of the 8.8 million consumers signed up so far for next year come from states Trump won in the 2016 presidential election.

Senate approves stopgap measure, evading shutdown35 minutes ago

WASHINGTON – Congress passed a stopgap spending bill Thursday, averting a partial government shutdown at midnight Friday but pushing into January showdowns on spending, immigration, health care and national security. Among the issues still to be resolved is federal aid for victims of recent hurricanes and wildfires.

Health care is the issue that won’t go away

AP file photo Retired family physician Jay Brock of Fredericksburg, Va., joins other protesters against the Republican health care bill in July outside the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., on Capitol Hill in Washington. A year after a big change in leadership, a survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 48 percent named health care as a top problem for the country.

With shutdown clock ticking, GOP struggles for spending deal

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., walks through Statuary Hall for final passage of the Republican tax reform bill, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday. Republicans muscled the most sweeping rewrite of the nation's tax laws in more than three decades through the House.

For GOP, day finally arrives: Voting to begin on tax plan

They have them in the House. They have them in the Senate. This bill is expected to pass both chambers and be on President Donald Trump's desk by Wednesday, no small feat given the extremely fast timeline GOP leaders gave themselves when they unveiled their tax plans last month.

McCain says he’s feeling well, vows return in January

Republican Sen. John McCain on Monday expressed thanks for the overwhelming support as he battles brain cancer, saying he is feeling well and looks forward to being back on the job in January. The 81-year senator returned home to Arizona after being treated for a viral infection at Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland.

The Latest: McCain feeling well, returning after holidays

In this Dec. 1, 2017 file photo, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., leaves a closed-door session where Republican senators met on the GOP effort to overhaul the tax code, on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Donald Trump says McCain is returning home to Arizona after being hospitalized over the side effects from his brain cancer treatment.

Sanders calls GOP tax bill a “massive attack” on middle class

"At the end of the day what you had is people like [Treasury Secretary Steven] Mnuchin, who himself is worth $300 or $400 million dollars, or the president of the United States who is worth several billion dollars, as you mentioned, some 4,000 to 5,000 lobbyists doing everything that they could to write a bill which significantly benefits the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations," Sanders said on CBS News' "Face the Nation" on Sunday. Sanders said that Republicans will turn to cutting "Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid" to offset upwards of $1 trillion in lost revenue, a scenario he said was "grossly unfair" to middle class families.

Tax bill guts unpopular ‘Obamacare’ insurance mandate

Republicans didn't get their wish to repeal former President Barack Obama's health care law, but the tax bill barreling toward a final vote in Congress guts its most unpopular provision, the requirement that virtually all Americans carry health insurance. Politically, the move is a winner for Republicans, who otherwise would have little to show for all their rhetoric about "Obamacare."

Joe Biden consoles daughter of cancer-stricken US senator John McCain

Former US vice-president Joe Biden has consoled the daughter of Republican senator John McCain after she began crying while discussing her father's battle with brain cancer on the chat show The View. Meghan McCain, a panellist on the program, told Mr Biden she hadn't been able to finish reading his new memoir, which centres on the 2015 death of his son Beau Biden from an aggressive tumour called glioblastoma - doctors diagnosed Senator McCain with the same type of tumour in July .

Harsher policies under Trump reportedly damage health of

Their fears - real and imagined - about the potential deportation of their parents are causing illness and perhaps permanent brain changes, according to a new study released Wednesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit leader in health-policy analysis. The study showed that legal and undocumented immigrant families are being consumed by the stresses produced by the Trump administration's harsher enforcement policies.