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).
The U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs introduced legislation Tuesday requiring banks to maintain “digital dollar wallets” for coronavirus stimulus payments to consumers.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo Wednesday afternoon said the greatest strain on the state’s health care system from the coronavirus could come in approximately 21 days, while also providing early indications about steps the state might eventually take to restart the economy.
One of the most influential industries on Capitol Hill was left out of the package that advanced early Wednesday, an apparent setback for a sector that had expected to easily secure $3 billion to fund the purchase of oil to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).
There's no 12th Democratic presidential debate on the horizon now that the nominating process is in a holding pattern due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Senate will reconvene later Wednesday to vote on the package. But that does not mean the bill is guaranteed to land on President Donald Trump’s desk. The House of Representatives has to pass it, and that may not be an easy feat.
The White House and Senate leaders of both major political parties announced agreement early Wednesday on an unprecedented $2 trillion emergency bill to rush sweeping aid to businesses, workers and a health care system slammed by the coronavirus pandemic.
Stocks are moving tentatively higher in early trading on Wall Street Wednesday after Congress and the White House reached a deal to inject nearly $2 trillion of aid into an economy ravaged by the coronavirus.
The death toll in Spain from the coronavirus shot up by more than 700 on Wednesday, surpassing China and is now second only to Italy as the pandemic spread rapidly in Europe, with even Britain’s Prince Charles testing positive for the virus.
Each piece of legislation is long: 247 pages for the Senate bill and a whopping 1,404 pages for the House bill. While we cannot distill every provision, here’s a look at some of the major differences between the two pieces of legislation.
Stocks are jumping in midday trading on Wall Street Tuesday amid expectations that Congress is nearing a deal on a big coronavirus relief bill. That would follow more aggressive steps from the Federal Reserve announced a day earlier to support lending and bond markets.
