Republicans in the US Senate on Thursday scrambled to salvage their tax plan after it hit unexpected roadblocks, leaving US President Donald Trump still waiting for a major political victory he hopes to secure before year’s end.
Trump had hoped his party would pass the controversial bill as early as Thursday night, handing the White House and Republicans their most significant legislative achievement of his young presidency.
However, after 11th-hour negotiations over how to offset the cost of dramatic tax cuts for corporations and more modest cuts for individuals, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell postponed votes until midday yesterday.
A tense standoff on the Senate floor threw the bill’s fate into question, after a new projection showed the measure would add US$1 trillion to the federal deficit.
The analysis complicated Trump’s argument, shared by many Republicans, that the tax cuts would pay for themselves through additional economic growth — and left some senators mulling the addition of future tax hikes into the plan to ensure sufficient revenue.
In a dramatic move, three Republican senators refused to vote on a procedural measure until they were assured that more changes could be made to the legislation.
Republicans hold a narrow 52-48 Senate majority. Three defectors would kill the bill, and a handful were showing reservations about a measure that experts have said would benefit corporations and the wealthy.
US Senator Bob Corker, who has publicly criticized Trump in recent months, wants a “trigger” inserted to raise taxes if revenues fall short of projections.
However, the Senate parliamentarian told lawmakers that such a mechanism would not be allowed under budget rules.
Republicans ultimately voted to proceed, but the showdown highlighted the delicate balancing act in getting the tax plan across the finish line.
“It doesn’t look like the trigger is going to work,” US media quoted Republican Senator John Cornyn as saying.
One option for boosting revenue would be to raise corporate tax rates after six years, perhaps by half a percentage point per year, Cornyn said.
As it stands, the bill would reduce the corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. Trump has repeatedly called for a 20 percent corporate rate.
Lawmakers were seeking new ways to circumvent the unexpected snags.
Political news site Roll Call quoted Senator Lindsey Graham as saying that he felt “confident that if there’s a shortfall in the projections that there’ll be a mechanism in the bill to deal with the deficit.”
However, Senator Ted Cruz warned that inserting automatic tax hikes would set a “bad precedent,” because they could force US families into paying higher taxes during an economic downturn.
Some conservatives have bridled at seeing their party trample the anti-deficit budget orthodoxy they preached during the Obama presidency: The bill before them would balloon the national deficit by US$1.4 trillion over the coming decade, the US Congressional Budget Office estimated.
If the legislation passes the Senate, it still must be reconciled with the recently passed US House of Representatives version. The plans differ on some points.
As Republican leaders scrambled to overcome final objections and lock down necessary votes, their essential argument was a simple one: If they fail on tax reform, they can expect major losses in midterm elections in November next year.
US Democrats, united in opposition, have argued that the plan is too expensive and would accommodate only the rich.
Senator Mazie Hirono used some salty language to get the point across.
“Rather than crafting a tax plan that would actually help middle-class families, Donald Trump and the Republican Party have decided to screw them over instead,” she told colleagues.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS