Republicans celebrated their first legislative win of the year Wednesday, after both houses of Congress passed a sweeping tax reform package.
But one Democratic congresswoman told Cheddar there’s still hope for constituents who remain opposed to the bill.
“Stay mobilized, let your voice be heard,” Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) said Wednesday morning, after the Senate voted, but before the House reconvened. “Nothing is permanent but death and taxes, and we can do something about these taxes and we can do something about the makeup of this Congress.”
The president and his party leaders gathered Wednesday afternoon to praise the benefits of the tax system overhaul, which drops the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent, nearly doubles the standard deduction for individuals, and lowers the tax rate for most income brackets.
While the GOP says the long-overdue changes will provide a boost to the economy, Democrats dispute that claim and say the bill will largely benefit the wealthiest Americans and balloon the deficit.
The bill does appear to be broadly unpopular. A recent CNN poll found that 55 percent of respondents opposed the legislation, a 10 percentage point increase since last month. Still, it passed the House by a vote of 224-201 Wednesday afternoon, with only 12 Republican naysayers.
Republicans also took to Twitter to cheer the victory. President Donald Trump posted a gif that read “Tax Cut for Christmas”.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/rep-bonnie-watson-coleman-d-nj-says-voters-can-change-the-makeup-of-congress-in-2018).
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The Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act is expected to pass the Democrat-controlled House, where it passed before in 2019 and 2020, but could face a tougher battle in the split Senate.
Rep. Mark Takano (D- Calif. 41st District) discusses the need to pass the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act especially in the wake of the shooting deaths of eight people in Atlanta area spas, six of them being women of Asian descent.
U.S. health officials are relaxing social distancing recommendations for schools, now saying students can sit as close as 3 feet to each other in classrooms.
The Federal Reserve says it will restore capital requirements for large banks that were relaxed as part of the Fed’s efforts to shore up the financial system during the early days of the pandemic.
Rep. Marilyn Strickland (D-Wash. 10th District), one of four Korean Americans to be elected to Congress, talked about the need for urgency and accountability following the killing of eight people, including six Asian women.
The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits rose last week to 770,000, a sign that layoffs remain high even as much of the U.S. economy is steadily recovering from the coronavirus recession.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell once again doubled down on the easy money policies that have defined the central bank's response to the pandemic-fueled economic downturn.
Stop AAPI Hate co-founder Cynthia Choi joined Cheddar to discuss anti-Asian hate crime reporting and what Americans can do to combat incidents of racial discrimination against Asian and Pacific Islander Americans.
