A bill providing more than $600 billion in tax cuts easily cleared the House on Thursday, setting up a vote on a separate bill to fund the government through the end of the current fiscal year. It makes permanent dozens of costly corporate tax breaks such as the research and development tax credit that had until now have been temporary.
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“I’ve been on the Ways and Means Committee for 15 years and we’ve been trying to get this kind of tax policy in place for hard-working families, for successful small businesses, for new businesses, for as long as I’ve been here”, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Wednesday.
The Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, largely pushed for by Democrats, could also be made permanent if the legislation is passed. Then, Congress would adjourn until January.
Many on each side saw the budget deal as the best they could get under divided government. The activity came a day after leaders of the huge House Republican majority moved decisively to pin responsibility on Wolf to scrape up support in the chamber, one week shy of the modern-day Pennsylvania record for a budget standoff.
Wolf, the Republican-controlled Senate and House Democrats have continued to back a $30.8 billion spending plan – a 6 percent spending increase – and an accompanying $1 billion-plus tax plan that has not been written into legislation.
Some Democrats criticized the tax bill, saying it gives more aid to large corporations and wealthy business owners than to working families.
Opponents said the bill would explode the deficit and leave Congress with less money in the future to pay for important domestic programs. The Senate’s expected approval would ship both, totaling 2,200 pages, to President Barack Obama for his promised signature.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday that she opposes the House-backed tax package but she will vote f… In particular they voiced concern that the spending measure failed to impose restrictions on the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the U.S. But the House vote on the appropriations package, which will occur Friday morning, could be close.
I’m hopeful we’re going to get there, yeah.
In addition, some objectionable riders did make it into the spending bill. She’s broadcasting Thursday that she’s not sure if she can bring enough votes to the table to help this bill – called an “omnibus” in D.C. speak – pass. Together, the two bills would pare taxes by $680 billion over 10 years.
In a win for Republicans, tucked into the two bills were provisions delaying controversial taxes associated with ObamaCare. Only six Democrats and Independent Bernie Sanders, a presidential hopeful, voted against the measure.
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Among other policy shifts, the bill would delay contentious pieces of the 2010 health law, by suspending the excise tax on medical devices for 2016 and 2017 and delaying for two years the so-called Cadillac tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health insurance. Pelosi doesn’t have a unified caucus both: Many Democrats blamed the legislation since it removes a decades-old ban on crude oil exports & omits monetary protections for Puerto Rico, which is struggling with a debt crisis. And 16 million children are living in poverty in this country, but Congress has made a decision to cut food and nutrition services for our most vulnerable and increase the already bloated defense budget. People in the seven states without income taxes could deduct local sales taxes on their federal returns.
