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East Oregonian
BRIEFLY
Budget deficit hits $666B,
an $80B spike for the year
WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal budget deficit rose
to $666 billion in the just-completed fiscal year, a spike that
comes as Republicans are moving to draft a tax code rewrite
that promises to add up to $1.5 trillion to the national debt
over the coming decade.
The sobering deficit numbers, released Friday by the
Treasury Department and the White House budget office,
followed Senate passage Thursday night of a 10-year budget
plan that shelves GOP concerns on deficits and debt in favor
of a tax overhaul.
Still, House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin insisted
Friday on “CBS This Morning”: “We’re Republicans. We’re
sensitive to the deficit.”
President Donald Trump and his GOP allies on Capitol
Hill promise this year’s tax legislation will spark a burst
of economic growth — and hope it will pay big political
dividends for their party.
Friday’s budget figures represent an $80 billion jump over
last year’s $585 billion deficit, which itself was way up over the
previous year’s $438 billion. The administration says the sour
deficit report shows a need to pass the tax overhaul measure.
“Through a combination of tax reform and regulatory
relief, this country can return to higher levels of GDP
growth, helping to erase our fiscal deficit,” said Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
Suicide bombings in Afghanistan
hit mosques, killing 63
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Suicide bombers struck
two mosques in Afghanistan during Friday prayers, a Shiite
mosque in Kabul and a Sunni mosque in western Ghor
province, killing at least 63 people at the end of a particularly
deadly week for the troubled nation.
The Afghan president issued a statement condemning
both attacks and saying that country’s security forces would
step up the fight to “eliminate the terrorists who target
Afghans of all religions and tribes.”
In the attack in Kabul, a suicide bomber walked into
the Imam Zaman Mosque, a Shiite mosque in the western
Dashte-e-Barchi neighborhood where he detonated his
explosives vest, killing 30 and wounding 45, said Maj. Gen.
Alimast Momand at the Interior Ministry.
The suicide bombing in Ghor province struck a Sunni
mosque, also during Friday prayers and killed 33 people,
including a warlord who was apparently the target of the
attack, said Mohammad Iqbal Nizami, the spokesman for the
provincial chief of police.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for either
attack, the latest in a devastating week that saw Taliban
attacks kill scores across the country.
Somalia’s death toll now at 358
as ‘state of war’ planned
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Thousands of anguished
Somalis gathered to pray Friday at the site of the country’s
deadliest attack, while the toll rose to 358 and dozens
remained missing. Somalia’s president will announce a “state
of war” against the al-Shabab extremist group blamed for the
bombing, the prime minister said.
The United States is expected to play a supporting role in the
new offensive that President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed
is set to launch on Saturday, a Somali military official told The
Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity
because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
Somalia’s army spokesman Capt. Abdullahi Iman said
the offensive involving thousands of troops will try to push
al-Shabab fighters out of their strongholds in the Lower
Shabelle and Middle Shabelle regions where many deadly
attacks on Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, and on Somali and
African Union bases have been launched.
Also Friday, the U.S. military said it had resumed its fight
against al-Shabab with a drone strike.
The extremist group has not commented on Saturday’s
truck bombing in Mogadishu, which Somali intelligence
officials have said was meant to target the city’s heavily
fortified international airport where many countries have
their embassies.
Charges, insults fly after Trump
aide assails congresswoman
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on
Friday rushed to defend chief of staff John Kelly after he
mischaracterized the remarks of a Democratic congresswoman
and called her an “empty barrel” making noise. A Trump
spokeswoman said it was “inappropriate” to question Kelly in
light of his stature as a retired four-star general.
The administration also insisted it’s long past time to end
the political squabbling and insult trading over President
Donald Trump’s compassion for America’s war dead, even as
it lobbed fresh vilification at Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson.
She kept the barbed exchanges going, adding a new
element by suggesting a racial context.
Taking cues from a president who hates to back down, the
administration staunchly defended Kelly, who a day before
had denounced Wilson’s criticism of Trump — and added his
condemnation of past remarks she had made at a Miami event.
Kelly said she delivered a 2015 speech at an FBI field
office dedication in which she “talked about how she was
instrumental in getting the funding for that building,” rather
than keeping the focus on the fallen agents for which it was
named. Video of the speech contradicted his recollection.
Wilson, in an interview Friday with The New York Times,
brought race into the dispute.
“The White House itself is full of white supremacists,”
said Wilson, who is black, as is the Florida family Trump
had called in a condolence effort this week that led to the
back-and-forth name calling.
Trump, in an interview with Fox Business Network, then
called Wilson’s criticism of Kelly “sickening.” And, in a
comment that seems unlikely to be the last word, he said he
actually had a “very nice call,” with the family of Sgt. La David
Johnson.
REAL ESTATE AUCTION
NATION/WORLD
Saturday, October 21, 2017
Q&A
GOP effort to overhaul the tax system
By MARCY GORDON
AP Business Writer
WASHINGTON
—
Divided Republicans in
Congress are tackling an
ambitious overhaul of the
nation’s tax system that
would deeply cut levies for
corporations and double the
standard deduction used by
most average Americans.
Despite
controlling
Congress and the White
House, Republicans failed
to carry out their years-long
promise to dismantle and
replace former President
Barack Obama’s health care
law. They say the nearly $6
trillion tax plan, to bring
the first major revamp
in three decades, is their
once-in-a-generation oppor-
tunity. President Donald
Trump sets it as his highest
legislative priority.
But can they deliver?
What are the next steps for
Congress? How would the
changes affect the average
taxpayer? Some questions
and answers:
What does the tax plan do?
Why is it important?
Trump and Republican
leaders unveiled the proposal
last month, pitching it as a
boon to the middle class and
a needed spark to economic
growth and job creation.
It’s only an outline, with
Congress left to put meat on
the bones as lawmakers turn
it into complex legislation.
The plan calls for reduced
taxes for most individuals,
slashing the corporate tax
rate from 36 percent to 20
percent, and doubling the
standard deduction used by
most average Americans
to $12,000 for individuals
and $24,000 for families.
The number of tax brackets
would shrink from seven to
three, with tax rates of 12
percent, 25 percent and 35
percent. (Now make that
four, with an added bracket
for high-income earners,
rate to be determined, House
Speaker Paul Ryan said
Friday.) Inheritance taxes on
multimillion-dollar estates
would be repealed.
It would bring far-reaching
AP Photo/Julie Jacobson
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan applauds as attendees
to the 72nd Annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Founda-
tion dinner are announced Thursday in New York.
changes for businesses large
and small, with fallout too for
American companies beyond
U.S. borders. The American
middle-class family could
take advantage of a heftier
child tax credit and the extra
money that could come from
the bigger standard deduc-
tion.
But there are too many
holes in the spare nine-page
plan, like the income levels
that would fit with each tax
bracket and what might
happen to other deductions
used by middle-class people,
to know how it actually
would affect individual
taxpayers and families.
Other looming unknowns
are how it would be paid for
and how much it might add
to the mounting $20 trillion
national debt.
How do the plan’s backers
and others say it would
affect average people?
The Trump administration
is promising that the tax cuts
— “which will be the biggest
in the history of our country!”
— would bring a $4,000 pay
raise annually for the average
family. Trump expanded
that number even further
Friday, telling Fox Business
Network’s Maria Bartiromo,
“It can be $5,000 average per
individual, per group.”
That might sound like
the pledge of “a chicken
in every pot” that’s been
attributed to President
Herbert Hoover in the
1920s. But Trump’s claim is
based on fuzzy math, in the
view of skeptical tax experts
and Democratic lawmakers.
Rather than helping the
middle class, Democrats
charge, the plan mainly
would benefit wealthy
individuals — like Trump
— and big corporations.
The partisan debate over
the plan is all about who’s
got the middle class’s back.
You’ll be hearing those two
words a lot out of Wash-
ington in coming weeks.
What happens next?
Now that Senate Repub-
licans have muscled through
a $4 trillion budget plan, and
the House is poised to adopt
it, the ground has been laid
for serious work to begin
on filling in the details and
whipping up complex tax
legislation. The budget plan
provides for $1.5 trillion
over 10 years in debt-fi-
nanced tax cuts, busting
earlier GOP pledges of strict
fiscal discipline.
But the work won’t be
quick. Strap in for a long
slog in separate House and
Senate committee hearings,
drafting meetings and
closed-door negotiations.
And a feast for lobbyists
descending on lawmakers,
especially members of the
two tax-writing commit-
tees. The swarm depicted
in “Showdown at Gucci
Gulch,” the book chronicling
lobbying in the landmark
1986 tax overhaul under
President Ronald Reagan, is
about to get its second act.
The Republicans are
promising to get a final bill to
Trump’s desk by Christmas
— already slippage from
the earlier Thanksgiving
deadline. The House version
of the legislation is expected
to come forward by early
next month. The Senate has
its own ideas and may well
craft its own bill, which
means the differences would
have to be hammered out
in a potentially contentious
joint conference.
Are Republicans divided?
Complicating the picture
further, the tax plan already
has driven a sharp wedge
through House Republicans,
cracking open regional fault
lines within the majority
party. The plan would elim-
inate the federal deduction
for state and local taxes, a
widely popular break used
by some 44 million Ameri-
cans, especially in high-tax,
Democratic-leaning states
like New York, New Jersey
and California.
Republican lawmakers
from those states have
revolted,
balking
at
supporting the tax plan when
their votes are so critically
needed. Their opposition
has led the GOP leaders in
Congress to hear out the frac-
tious GOP members and seek
a compromise with them.
At the same time, the White
House has made overtures on
the tax plan to conservative
Democrats in the House and
Democratic senators from
states that Trump won in the
2016 election.
AP POLL: Vegas shooting doesn’t change opinions on guns
ATLANTA (AP) — The
slaying of five dozen people
in Las Vegas did little to
change Americans’ opinions
about gun laws.
The nation is closely
divided
on
whether
restricting firearms would
reduce such mass shootings
or homicides, though a
majority favor tighter laws
as they have for several
years, according to a new
poll from The Associated
Press-NORC Center for
Public Affairs Research.
The massive divide on
stricter limits remains firmly
in place.
The
survey
was
conducted
from
Oct.
12-16, about two weeks
after 64-year-old Stephen
Paddock fired on a crowded
musical festival taking place
on across the street from his
hotel room, killing 58 and
wounding more than 540
before killing himself. It’s
the deadliest mass shooting
in modern U.S. history.
In this latest survey, 61
percent said the country’s
gun laws should be tougher,
while 27 percent would
rather see them remain the
same and 11 percent want
them to be less strict. That’s
similar to the results of an
AP-GfK poll in July 2016.
Nearly 9 in 10 Demo-
crats, but just a third of
Republicans, want to see
gun laws made stricter.
Kenny
Garcia,
a
31-year-old resident of
Stockton, California, and a
former gun owner, said he’s
torn about whether tighter
gun laws would lead to a
reduction in mass shootings.
“That’s the hard part,”
Garcia said. “How do you
control something like that
when you have no idea where
it’s coming from, whether
you control the guns or not?”
Still, he’s frustrated by
easy availability of some
devices — such as the
“bump stocks” used by the
Las Vegas shooter to make
his semi-automatic guns
mimic the more rapid fire of
automatic weapons.
“They give people access
to these things, then they
question after something
horrible happens, but yet
the answer is right there,” he
said. “It just doesn’t make
sense.”
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