US Senate Republicans early yesterday narrowly passed landmark tax reform, a critical step toward delivering a monumental legislative victory for US President Donald Trump in his first year in office.
After a marathon session that stretched overnight, the chamber voted 51 to 49 in favor of the nation’s largest tax overhaul in 31 years, overcoming stubborn internal Republican resistance and dismissing US Democrats angry over last-minute revisions to the bill.
The Senate version and the one passed recently by the US House of Representatives must now be reconciled into a single bill, and approved again by both chambers, before Trump can sign it into law.
Photo: AP
Both versions dramatically lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent and include more modest tax cuts aimed at individuals across all income levels.
The Senate vote amounted to a reversal of fortune for Trump and Republican leaders, whose bill just 24 hours earlier was on the brink of collapse when a handful of Republican deficit hawks balked at the controversial plan’s US$1.5 trillion price tag for 10 years.
After extensive negotiations, the bill was salvaged. Tax writers tweaked the 479-page measure deep into the night, leaving Democrats furious over the last-minute, handwritten changes to the legislation.
Democrats fumed that they received the text — peppered with extensive handwritten modifications that earned scorn from opposition lawmakers — only a few hours before the vote.
“We understand they have the votes to pass their bill despite a process — and a product — that no one can be proud of and everyone should be ashamed of,” Democratic US Senator Chuck Schumer told colleagues.
Haste and the darkness of night were Trump’s allies in the process, he added.
As the final vote was tallied, grinning Republicans congratulated one another with handshakes, backslaps and hugs.
A trio of Democrats, including Senator Ron Wyden, a ferocious opponent of the bill, stood motionless in the back of the chamber.
Mindful of the historic nature of the vote, US Vice President Mike Pence presided over the chamber during final passage.
A nonpartisan congressional tax scorekeeper had projected the tax overhaul would add US$1 trillion to the deficit, even after accounting for expected economic growth from the plan.
The analysis complicated Trump’s argument that the tax cuts would pay for themselves through additional economic growth.
The Senate and the House must negotiate a compromise bill, and contentious votes are likely in the weeks ahead.
“Now, we will move quickly to a conference committee so we can get a final bill to President Trump’s desk,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement.
Democrats have argued that the plan is too expensive and would accommodate only the rich, and that it could ultimately impact cherished US entitlement programs such as Medicare.
“The federal treasury is being looted tonight,” Senator Bernie Sanders roared in the chamber.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS