Washington (AP) – President Donald Trump declared “no one goes on vacation” until the big bill is on his office by the deadline of July 4. And the Republicans of the Congress remain on site to do so.
The Senate is preparing for the work of the weekend, while Mike Johnson room president Legislators said on Tuesday to keep their schedules “flexible” when they were preparing more votes.
“We are making good progress,” said the head of the majority of the Senate, John Thune, Rs.d. He expects the Senate to get this “finish line” by the end of the week, sending it back to the room for a quick action.
But the Republicans who have majority control of the Chamber and the Senate find that their push to move quickly and change things – namely the cuts of the programs of the federal government, in particular Medicaid and snap food coupons Used by millions of Americans – is easier to say than to do.
Not all GOP legislators are on board, and The Senate parliamentarian indicated that several key proposals violate the procedural rules. The Democrats have categorically opposed, everything leaves the leaders of the GOP to rush a few days before the final votes.
Here is the last on what there is, released and always on debate while the legislators work to finish the huge 1,000 pages package plus.
What is the goal of Big Bill? Tax reductions.
The absolute priority for the Republicans is to prevent what they are warning would be a huge increase in taxes, some 3.8 dollars of dollars, after December, when the tax reductions they implemented during Trump’s first term in 2017, expire.
The big invoice seeks to do Tax rate and existing permanent supports, While temporarily adding new creations to Trump on Trump – no advice taxes, overtime or some car loans, as well as a greater deduction of $ 6,000 in the Senate project for the elderly who earn more than $ 75,000 per year.
The richest households would see an increase of $ 12,000, while the bill would cost the poorest people $ 1,600 per year, according to the budget office of the non -partisan congress.
Taxpayers with average income would see a tax interruption of $ 500 to $ 1,500, Said CBO.
A provision for families would increase children’s tax credit from $ 2,000 to $ 2,200 under the Senate proposal or $ 2,500 in the House. But families at lower income levels will not see the total amount, if applicable.
And an unresolved problem is the proposed ceiling of $ 40,000 in the room on state deductions and local, called Salt, that the GOP senators say that it is too high and that you want to be limited.
The bill also finances deportations, a border wall and the garden of Trump’s heroes
There are also some $ 350 billion in new funds in the Package for the Trump border and national security agenda.
Trump promises the biggest mass deportation operation in the history of the United States, and the package offers money to hire 10,000 new immigration and customs agents, with signing bonuses of $ 10,000, and for 100,000 immigration ownership beds in order to deport some 1 million people per year.
In addition, the House’s bill offers $ 12 billion for the Homeland Security Secretary to grants subsidies that help federal immigration and deportation actions. The Senate package also provides the Attorney General of $ 3.5 billion to create a similar state fund – called Bridging Lifelated Deficits linked to the national scale, or Biden, referring to the former president.
Immigrants entering the United States would face new steep costs, including $ 1,000 for those looking for asylum protections.
There is also money for the development of Trump’s “Golden Dome” anti-missile defense system in the United States and quality of life measures for soldiers and women.
And there are extras: a provision of the Senate would provide $ 40 million to establish that Trump for a long time “National Garden of American Heroes.”
How to pay for this? MEDICAID, SNAP and GREEN ENERGY PROGRES CUPS
To help partly compensate for lost tax revenues, Republicans seek to reduce certain long -standing government programs – Medicaid, food coupons and green energy incentives – essentially Destroy achievements of the last two Democratic presidents: Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
Republicans argue that they are trying to cut the safety net programs for the population that they were initially designed to serve – mainly women and pregnant children – and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.
The package includes new work requirements of 80 hours in months for many adults receiving Medicaid and food coupons, including the elderly up to 65 years. Parents of children over 10 years old should work to qualify for food aid, and adolescents should comply with the work requirement for Medicaid.
“It’s extremely popular,” said Johnson on Tuesday, noting that people can work, volunteer or go to school or vocational training programs. “For the love of heaven, do something constructive.”
Some 80 million Americans rely on Medicaid, which has developed under the Obama affordable care law, and 40 million use The additional nutritional assistance programAnd most already work, according to analysts.
In all, CBO estimates At least 10.9 million people more would be without health coverage and 3 million more would not qualify for food coupons.
Deeper instruction cuts that would transferate costs to the States have been questioned by the Senate parliamentarian and have been revised. And more Medicaid changes are to be discussed – including a plan of the Senate to reduce the supposedly providers’ tax that most states impose on hospitals and other entities.
The key senators of the GOP and a coalition of room republicans warn that the tax reductions on the lower Medicaid suppliers will harm rural hospitals. “We cannot support a final bill that threatens access to coverage,” said 16 GOP legislators in a leadership letter.
Senators are considering the creation of a new rural hospital fund, but the plan remains a work in progress. They also had objections to the new co-payment of $ 35 of the room on Medicaid Services.
The bills of the Chamber and the Senate offer a spectacular decline in tax alternatives of green energy from the Biden era for electric vehicles as well as the credit creation and investment credits that companies use to support the projects of wind turbines, solars and other renewable energies.
All in all, Medicaid cuts, food coupons and green energy programs should produce at least 1.5 billion of dollars in savings.
What is the final cost?
In total, the maintenance of existing tax alternatives and the addition of new ones would cost 3.8 billions of dollars during the decade, CBO said in its analysis of the invoice of the Chamber. The Senate project is slightly higher.
Expenditure reductions total at least 1.5 billion of dollars.
The CBO estimates that the house package would add 2.4 billions of dollars to the country’s deficits during the decade.
Or not, depending on how we Make the calculation.
The Senate Republicans offer a unique strategy not to count existing tax alternatives as a new cost, because they are already a “current policy”. They argue that the chairman of the budget committee has the power to define the reference base for his favorite approach.
Under the GOP of the Senate, the cost of the tax provisions would be $ 441 billion, according to the joint committee of the Congress on taxation.
Democrats and others argue that it is “magic mathematics” that obscure the costs of the GOP tax alternatives. The responsible federal budget committee puts the senate count at 4.2 dollars of dollars during the decade.
“Current Policy Baseline” is a budgetary gadget, “said senator Jeff Merkley, the best democrat of the budget committee.” This bill will add thousands of billion billions of dollars to national debt to finance tax lues for billionaires. “
Trump, on the way to Europe for a NATO meeting, said the senators to lock himself in a room if necessary and “do the bill”.
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Associated Press writes Darlene Superville and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
