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Republicans finalize tax plan, expand benefits for working families in bid to win over Rubio

December 16, 2017 by  
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Congressional Republicans finished rewriting their massive plan to overhaul the tax code on Friday, adding in a significant expansion of the Child Tax Credit aimed at boosting benefits for low-income families.

The change was added to meet demands from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who set off frenzied, last-minute negotiations when he threatened on Thursday to vote against the bill unless the credit was expanded.

Rep. Kristi L. Noem (R-S.D.), one of the Republicans tasked with ironing out a final bill, said the credit had been expanded, particularly for low-income and working-class families.

“I believe that we’re in a good spot and should be able to earn his support” she said of Rubio.

But a Rubio spokeswoman said the senator was reviewing the final measure to see if the expansion was enough for him to vote for the bill.

“We have not seen bill text, and until we see if the [amount of the expanded credit] is significantly higher, then our position remains the same,” she wrote in an email.

Republican negotiators have proposed to expand the Child Tax Credit from $1,000 per child to up to $2,000 per child, but in earlier versions of the plan, that full expansion would not be available to every family. Many lower-income families would only qualify for a $1,100 child tax credit.

Noem said Friday the plan’s credit for such families had been increased to $1,400, though it couldn’t be immediately learned how the expansion would work.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said negotiations were complete, but he would not say if Rubio had been placated.

“We ought to have every senator’s support on this tax reform bill,” Brady said.

Rubio, in a series of Twitter posts earlier Friday, said the credit needed to be “meaningfully higher” for families that earn between $20,000 and $50,000 a year.

Rubio voted for an earlier version of the tax bill that Republicans passed through the Senate by a 51 to 49 margin.

If Rubio were to oppose the final plan, it could imperil the legislation’s chances of becoming law.

Republicans hold 52 Senate seats and need support from 50 of their members to pass the bill, as Vice President Pence could be called on to break a tie.

Democrats unanimously oppose the plan, giving individual GOP members significant leverage if they threaten to vote against it.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) voted against the Senate version of the tax plan over its additions to the debt, and while he has said he’ll review the final plan, he is not expected to support it. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has joined Rubio in pushing for the expanded credit and said Thursday through a spokesman that he has not yet made a final decision on the final plan.

Further complicating matters, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is in the hospital recovering from cancer treatment. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) assured reporters on Thursday that McCain would return to vote on the tax package next week.

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), another member who has recently been hospitalized, is in Washington and expects to vote for the final plan next week, a spokesman said.

A number of Republicans have opposed Rubio’s push to expand the child tax credit for people with lower incomes, saying many of those families do not pay federal income taxes and would end up receiving checks from the government.

But Rubio has held strong views on this issue for years, believing more must be done to help working families through the tax code.

His demands Thursday sent shock waves through Washington.

“People are really infuriated by it,” said Steve Moore, who was a top economic adviser to President Trump during the campaign. Moore said it remained unclear what Republicans would do if Rubio remains in­trac­table.

Trump on Friday expressed optimism the bill would pass, telling reporters that the Child Tax Credit is “increasing on a daily basis.”

“The Democrats have done nothing on the child tax credit . . . we’re putting in a tremendous child tax credit,” Trump said.

Democrats have proposed numerous expansions of the Child Tax Credit and other programs aimed at low-income families, but many of them made a calculated decision two weeks ago to oppose Rubio’s first effort to expand the credit in the bill.

The Child Tax Credit is just one component of a sweeping tax overhaul that Republicans have moved through Congress swiftly since November. The package would slash corporate tax rates, temporarily lower taxes paid by many households, and eliminate a number of tax breaks.

As Republicans sought to secure votes in the final weeks, they’ve made a number of changes to their plan meant to expand benefits to businesses and wealthier Americans. But Democrats — and some Republicans — have complained there should have been more done to help the middle class and the working poor.

The total package is expected to cut roughly $1.5 trillion in taxes over 10 years. Expanding the Child Tax Credit to accommodate Rubio’s demands could force Republicans to scale back other tax reductions, as Senate rules limit the total amount the plan can add to the national debt.

Republicans’ final plan does not include a proposal to move up the bill’s expiration date for many of its tax cuts for individuals, according to Republicans involved in the talks. In the Senate version of the bill, many of the cuts were set to end in 2025, and it appears they’ll keep that timeline in the final plan, though Republicans earlier this week had considered moving up that expiration date to 2024.

Republicans have said they expected the tax breaks to be extended by a future Congress.

The new timeline would have given them more revenue to fund other changes they’ve made to the plan, but it would have further cut benefits for middle-class households in a tax overhaul whose benefits already skew toward corporations and the wealthy.

It could not immediately be learned how Republicans aim to offset the changes included in their final plan.

After Republicans said they’d completed final changes, House members began signing what is known as a “conference report.”

The House and Senate plan to vote on the final bill next week. If Congress approves it, Trump could then sign it into law.

— Reporter Heather Long contributed to this report.

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On His Way to Speak At FBI, Trump Slams The Bureau And Opens Door To Pardoning Flynn

December 16, 2017 by  
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President Donald Trump, listens to FBI Director Christopher Wray speak, with Attorney General Jeff Sessions (right) at the FBI National Academy graduation ceremony on Friday, in Quantico, Va.

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President Donald Trump, listens to FBI Director Christopher Wray speak, with Attorney General Jeff Sessions (right) at the FBI National Academy graduation ceremony on Friday, in Quantico, Va.

Evan Vucci/AP

President Trump, minutes before heading to speak at the FBI’s National Academy, lashed out at the bureau, saying “it’s a shame what’s happened with the FBI” and claiming there are “a lot of very angry people that are seeing it.”

Speaking to reporters on the White House lawn, Trump said, “We’re going to rebuild the FBI” after what he described as “really, really disgraceful” documents. He appeared to be referring to text messages the Justice Department provided Congress this week in which a senior agent described candidate Trump as an “idiot” and made other political remarks in the course of the presidential campaign.

Trump’s comments are the latest in a barrage of criticism he has directed at the FBI. Earlier this month, he declared on Twitter that the bureau’s reputation is “in Tatters—worst in History!”

That assessment came days after special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the Russia investigation, secured a guilty plea from Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Trump opened the door Friday to pardoning Flynn.

“I don’t want to talk about pardons with Michael Flynn — yet,” Trump said. “We’ll see what happens. Let’s see.”

Flynn has not been sentenced and appears to be a cooperating witness as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. Trump called the investigation a “Democrat hoax,” “an excuse for losing the election” and claimed again “there is absolutely no collusion.”

Then-President Barack Obama wears an FBI hat given to him by then-FBI Director Robert Mueller before speaking to employees at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., in April 2009.

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Trump’s remarks on his way to Quantico, Va., carried new potency given the president’s audience Friday morning: the latest graduating class at the FBI’s National Academy for law enforcement managers.

In his speech, the president refrained from attacking the FBI. He made only passing references to the bureau in his remarks before U.S. and international law enforcement officers who were graduating from a program at the FBI’s prestigious training center.

Instead, Trump’s speech focused on his “law and order” agenda, and he echoed comments Attorney General Jeff Sessions has frequently made since inauguration day: the administration backs the police.

“With me as your president, America’s police will have a true friend and loyal champion in the White House. More loyal that anyone else can be,” Trump said. “You very rarely get the recognition you deserve.”

He promised to work with law enforcement to crack down on gangs and drug cartels, such as MS-13, whose members he referred to as “savages.”

“We’ll get rid of them completely, very soon, right?” Trump said as he turned and pointed to Sessions. “To any member of MS-13 listening: We will find you; we will arrest you; we will jail you; we will throw you the hell out of the country.”

While Trump refrained from criticizing the FBI in his speech, his comments earlier in the day hung over his appearance in Quantico—and dominated TV news coverage leading up to his address.

That’s because it’s unusual for a president to blast the bureau—the premier law enforcement agency in the country.

In fact, over the past 15 years, it’s been the other way around. President Barack Obama famously visited bureau headquarters a few months after he took office in 2009, donning an FBI baseball cap and sharing “the thanks of a grateful nation.” A year earlier, President George W. Bush praised “the character and courage of those who carry the badge.”

The appearance at the FBI had already promised to be complicated for Trump, given his record of derogatory public statements and negative tweets about the FBI this year.

Recently, Trump tweeted that the FBI’s reputation was in “Tatters – worst in History!” He called popular former FBI Director James Comey, whom he fired in May, “a liar” and “a leaker.” Trump also accused the FBI, without providing any evidence, of illegally wiretapping Trump Tower in 2016. And he continues to cast doubt on a conclusion by the bureau and other intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in last year’s presidential election.

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On Friday morning, Trump reaffirmed to reporters, “there is absolutely no collusion. I didn’t make a phone call to Russia. I have nothing to do with Russia. Everybody knows it. That was a Democrat hoax. It was an excuse for losing the election.”

Another source of awkwardness: the FBI’s longtime former leader, Mueller, is the man running the ongoing special counsel probe into election interference — and into whether anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign took part. So far, Mueller’s team has secured indictments against Paul Manafort, Trump’s onetime campaign chairman, and won guilty pleas from a campaign foreign policy official and Flynn.

That last development, on Dec. 1, prompted a new wave of attacks from Trump and his supporters on the integrity of the FBI and the Justice Department, fueled by the disclosure that the Justice Department Inspector General had uncovered text messages in which a senior agent working on the Russia probe had called Trump an “idiot” during the campaign.

FBI Director Christopher Wray Defends His Agency On Capitol Hill

While Mueller removed the agent from the investigation months ago, one of Trump’s lawyers, Jay Sekulow, has cited the matter to call for a second special counsel to investigate conflicts of interest at the bureau.

In response to a stream of harsh criticism this month, the FBI Agents Association mounted a rare public defense.

“Every day, FBI special agents put their lives on the line to protect the American public from national security and criminal threats,” President Tom O’Connor tweeted. “Agents perform their duties with unwavering integrity and professionalism and a focus on complying with the law and the Constitution. This is why the FBI continues to be the premier law enforcement agency in the world.”

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Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, former Justice Department official Christopher Wray, also raised his voice to defend the workforce in congressional testimony last week.

“Let me start by saying that it is for me the honor of a lifetime to be here representing the men and women of the FBI,” Wray said. “There is no finer institution than the FBI and no finer people than the men and women who work there and are its very beating heart.”

Trump appeared on stage with Wray to welcome the new class of National Academy graduates at what is known as the agency’s “police training center.”

The program puts attendees through a series of academic and physical challenges, building partnerships between police and the FBI. Nearly 10 years ago, Mueller told an FBI graduating class at Quantico, “For the past 100 years, the FBI has stood for the best of America.”

It remains to be seen whether the new president agrees.

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