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      A hidden measure in the Republican budget bill would crown Trump king | Robert Reich

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      If enacted, Donald Trump’s Big Ugly Bill as it emerged on Thursday from the House of Representatives would result in the largest redistribution of income and wealth in American history – from the poor and working class to the rich.Hidden within the bill is also a provision that would allow Trump to crown himself king.For months now, Trump has been trying to act like a king by ignoring court rulings against him.The supreme court has told Trump to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Ábrego García, a legal resident of the United States who even the Trump regime admits was erroneously sent to a brutal prison in El Salvador.Trump has done nothing.Lower federal courts have ordered him to stop deporting migrants without giving them a chance to know the charges against them and have the charges and evidence reviewed by a neutral judge or magistrate – the minimum of due process.Again, nothing.Judge James Boasberg, chief judge of the federal district court for the District of Columbia, issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump regime from flying individuals to the prison in El Salvador without due process.Judge Boasberg has found that the Trump regime has willfully disregarded his order.Is there anything that the courts can do in response to Trump’s open defiance of judges and justices?They have only one power to make their orders stick. They can hold federal officials in contempt, and enforce such contempt citations by fining or jailing them.It’s a radical remedy, rarely used. But several federal judges are at their wits’ end.Boasberg said that if Trump’s legal team does not give the dozens of Venezuelan men sent to the Sallvadorian prison a chance to legally challenge their removal, he’ll begin contempt proceedings against the administration.In a separate case, the US district court judge Paula Xinis has demanded that the Trump administration explain why it is not complying with the supreme court order to “facilitate” the release of Ábrego García.Xinis has even questioned whether the administration intends to comply with the order at all, citing a statement from the. homeland security chief, Kristi Noem, that Ábrego García “will never be allowed to return to the United States”.According to Xinis, “That sounds to me like an admission. That’s about as clear as it can get.”So what’s the next step? Will the supreme court and lower courts hold the administration in contempt and enforce the contempt citations?Trump and his Republican stooges in Congress apparently anticipated this. Hidden inside their Big Ugly Bill is a provision intended to block the courts from using contempt to enforce its orders. It reads:skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued …”Translated: no federal court may enforce a contempt citation.The measure would make most existing injunctions – in antitrust cases, police reform cases, school desegregation cases and others – unenforceable.Its only purpose is to weaken the power of the federal courts.As Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Berkeley School of Law dean and distinguished professor of law, notes, this provision would eliminate any restraint on Trump.“Without the contempt power, judicial orders are meaningless and can be ignored. There is no way to understand this except as a way to keep the Trump administration from being restrained when it violates the Constitution or otherwise breaks the law …“This would be a stunning restriction on the power of the federal courts. The Supreme Court has long recognized that the contempt power is integral to the authority of the federal courts. Without the ability to enforce judicial orders, they are rendered mere advisory opinions which parties are free to disregard.”In other words, with this single measure, Trump will have crowned himself king.If it is enacted, no Congress and no court could stop him. Even if a future Congress were to try, it could not do so without the power of the courts to enforce their hearings, investigations, subpoenas and laws.The gross unfairness of Trump’s Big Ugly Bill is bad enough. It would worsen the nation’s already near-record inequalities of income and wealth.But the provision inside the bill that neuters the federal courts is even worse. It would remove the last remaining constraint on Trump, and thereby effectively end American democracy.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

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      Charles Rangel, former Harlem congressman, dies aged 94

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      Former US congressman Charles Rangel of New York, an outspoken, gravel-voiced Harlem Democrat who spent nearly five decades on Capitol Hill and was a founding member of the Congressional Black caucus, died on Monday at the age of 94.His family confirmed the death in a statement provided by City College of New York spokesperson Michelle Stent. He died at a hospital in New York, Stent said.A veteran of the Korean war, Rangel defeated legendary Harlem politician Adam Clayton Powell in 1970 to start his congressional career. During the next 40-plus years, he became a legend himself – dean of the New York congressional delegation, and, in 2007, the first African American to chair the powerful House ways and means committee.He stepped down from that committee amid an ethics cloud, and the House censured him in 2010 after a House ethics committee conducted a hearing on 13 counts of alleged financial and fundraising misconduct over issues surrounding financial disclosures and use of congressional resources. He was convicted by Congress of 11 violations, but he continued to serve in the House until his retirement in 2017.Rangel was the last surviving member of the Gang of Four, Black political figures who wielded great power in New York City and state politics. The others were David Dinkins, New York City’s first Black mayor; Percy Sutton, who was Manhattan borough president; and Basil Paterson, a deputy mayor and secretary of state of New York.Rangel’s distinctive gravelly voice and wry sense of humor made him a memorable character not just in politics but in the rest of his life and environs.The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, paid tribute on X, calling Rangel a “great man, a great friend, and someone who never stopped fighting for his constituents and the best of America”.“The list of his accomplishments could take pages, but he leaves the world a much better place than he found it,” Schumer posted.The House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, also praised Rangel.“Charlie Rangel was a phenomenal patriot, hero, statesman, leader, trailblazer, change agent and champion for justice,” he posted on X.Jeffries, a fellow New Yorker, called Rangel “the Lion of Lenox Ave”, an iconic street at the heart of Harlem, and said he was a transformational force of nature.“Harlem, NYC & America are better today because of his service. May he forever rest in power,” Jeffries posted.Rangel was known for fiercely looking out for his constituents, sponsoring empowerment zones with tax credits for businesses moving into economically depressed areas and developers of low-income housing.“I have always been committed to fighting for the little guy,” Rangel said in 2012.He was known as one of the most liberal representatives in the House, loudest in opposition to the Iraq war, which he branded a “death tax” on poor people and minorities. In 2004, he tried to end the war by offering a bill to restart the military service draft. Republicans called his bluff and brought the bill to a vote. Even Rangel voted against it.A year later, Rangel’s fight over the war became bitterly personal with the then US vice-president, Dick Cheney, Republican president George W Bush’s running mate and a prime defense hawk.Rangel said Cheney, who has a history of heart trouble, might be too sick to perform his job.“I would like to believe he’s sick rather than just mean and evil,” Rangel said. After several such verbal jabs, Cheney hit back, saying Rangel was “losing it”.The Harlem lawmaker first entered the House in 1971. In 1987, Congress approved what was known as the “Rangel amendment”, which denied foreign tax credits to US companies investing in apartheid-era South Africa, where the wealthy ruling white minority held power by heavily oppressing the Black majority.Rangel was born on 11 June 1930. During the Korean war, he earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.A high school dropout, he went to college on the GI Bill, getting degrees from New York University and St John’s University School of Law.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Top Republicans threaten to block Trump’s spending bill if national debt is not reduced

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      Donald Trump has been warned by fiscal hawks within his own party in the US Senate that he must “get serious” about cutting government spending and reducing the national debt or else they will block the passage of his signature tax-cutting legislation known as the “big, beautiful bill”.Ron Johnson, the Republican senator from Wisconsin who rose to prominence as a fiscal hardliner with the Tea Party movement, issued the warning to the president on Sunday. Asked by CNN’s State of the Union whether his faction had the numbers to halt the bill, he replied: “I think we have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit.”Trump has invested a large portion of his political capital in the massive package. It extends the 2017 tax cuts from his first administration in return for about $1tn in benefits cuts including reductions in the health insurance scheme for low-income families, Medicaid, and to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) food stamps.The bill squeaked through US House by just one vote on Thursday. It now faces a perilous welcome in the upper legislative chamber.Sunday’s admonitions from prominent senators angered by the failure to address the budget deficit bodes ill for Trump’s agenda given the tightness of the Republicans’ congressional majorities. The Senate majority leader, John Thune, can afford to lose only three votes from among his party’s 53.Thune has indicated that changes to the bill might be needed to bring refuseniks on side. That in turn could present the House speaker, Mike Johnson, with a headache.The House will have to approve any changes made in the Senate under the process of budget reconciliation, which allows spending packages to be fast-tracked through Congress avoiding a Senate filibuster of 60 votes. The final contents of the bill will need to be blessed by both chambers, with Democrats almost certain to vote unanimously in opposition.The House speaker renewed his plea to his Senate colleagues on Sunday to go lightly with him. He encouraged them on CBS News’s Face the Nation “to make as few modifications as possible, remembering that I have a very delicate balance on our very diverse Republican caucus over in the House”.But Senate budget hawks do not appear to be in the mood for compromise. Ron Johnson estimated that the bill would add up to $4tn to the federal deficit, a calculation that is broadly in line with the latest analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).Johnson added a rare note of personal criticism of Trump from a congressional Republican. He said that while Trump might not be worried about the national debt, “I’m extremely worried about that.”He added: “We are mortgaging our children’s future. It’s wrong. It’s immoral. It has to stop.”Another key Tea Party senator, Rand Paul from Kentucky, has also been vocal over the deficit. He laid into the spending cuts contained in the big beautiful bill, telling Fox News Sunday that in his view they were “wimpy and anemic” and would “explode the debt”.Other influential Republican senators have been expressing concern about the number of Americans who would lose access to health coverage as a result of the legislation’s cuts to Medicaid. According to the CBO, almost 8 million people would be thrown off the benefit.Speaker Johnson tried to dismiss the concern, telling CBS News that 1.4 million of those vulnerable people were “illegal aliens receiving benefits” – and a further 4.8 million were able-bodied individuals choosing not to work and “gaming the system”.An analysis by the non-partisan FactCheck.org found that the claim that 1.4 million undocumented migrants were on Medicaid was false. People living in the US without immigration papers are not eligible for the federal program other than to receive emergency medical treatment.More than 1 million undocumented immigrants are in danger of losing health benefits as a result of Trump’s cuts – but this assistance is provided by states and has nothing to do with Medicaid.Any reduction in Medicaid would be politically awkward for Trump, who promised repeatedly on the campaign trail last year that he would not touch basic safety nets such as Medicaid, Medicare and social security. The president’s loyal supporters in the Maga (“Make America great again”) movement have cautioned against the move.Steve Bannon, who served as chief White House strategist in Trump’s first administration and remains a persuasive voice within the movement, recently told listeners to his War Room podcast: “You got to be careful, because a lot of Maga is on Medicaid.”Josh Hawley, the Republican US senator from Missouri, recently said that “slashing health insurance for the working poor” would be “politically suicidal”. More

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      ‘Pro-worker priorities’? Trump’s budget offers the exact opposite | Steven Greenhouse

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      With Donald Trump pushing hard to give big tax cuts to the rich and do huge favors for crypto billionaires, it was jarring to see a photo of a Trump aide carrying a sign that said: “President Trump’s Pro-Worker Priorities”. The aide was about to place the sign on Trump’s lectern; it mentioned such “pro-worker priorities” as ending federal taxes on tips and overtime pay: catchy, but scattershot policies that will help only a fraction of the nation’s workers.Not surprisingly, that sign made no mention of Trump’s many anti-worker policies that will do serious harm to millions of workers and their families. Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill, which is advancing in the House, includes the biggest cuts ever to Medicaid, a nearly 30% reduction in food assistance, and a $350bn cut in aid that helps working-class kids afford college. Trump has also pushed to end home-heating assistance and to make it harder for millions of Americans to afford Obamacare. If that isn’t painful enough, GOP deficit hawks have vowed to torpedo the budget bill unless it includes even more cuts. Under the current Trump House bill, at least 13.7 million people would lose health coverage – and the deficit hawks’ demands would increase that number.Even some prominent Republicans acknowledge that the Republican bill contains policies that will screw workers. Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri, slammed the Trump-GOP push to chop hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid. “These are working people and their children who need healthcare, and it’s just wrong to go and cut their healthcare when they’re trying to make ends meet, trying to help their kids,” Hawley said. He added: “No Republican should be supporting Medicaid benefit cuts.”To give a truer picture of what Trump is all about, that Trump aide should have also been carrying a sign that said: “President Trump’s Pro-Billionaire Priorities”. Those priorities are more ambitious and will cost far more than Trump’s “pro-worker priorities” – they include over a trillion dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy, stratagems to help crypto billionaires grow ever richer, and big cuts to the IRS budget to reduce the chances that the ultra-wealthy will get audited. To please his billionaire finance buddies, Trump has sought to gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created to protect typical families from financial scams and extortionate banking practices. And let’s not forget the many ways Trump is helping to steer more business to Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and Trump’s biggest campaign contributor (to the tune of $270m backing the president and other Republicans).The Center for American Progress points out that the Trump/Republican budget bill would, if implemented, “be the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in US history”. Another progressive thinktank, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, notes that the budget bill would cut $1.1tn from food aid, Medicaid and other health programs while lavishing $1.1tn in tax cuts upon those earning over $500,000. Not only that, the 1m households earning over $1m a year would receive $105bn in tax cuts in 2027 – that’s more than the tax cuts going to the 127m households earning under $100,000.Republicans defend their painful program cuts as healthy, saying they will hold down the budget deficit. But there is of course a far less painful and more worker-friendly way to reduce the budget deficit: don’t extend the trillions in Trump tax cuts that overwhelmingly favor the rich.When Trump boasts about the “big, beautiful” bill, he talks only about the tax cuts, but never about how the cuts in Medicaid and Snap (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) will hurt millions of families. The Republican party consistently fails to note that one in four small-business owners and one in four veterans live in households that receive help from Snap, Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Under the planned cuts to Snap, 42 million people – including one in five children in the US – could see their food assistance reduced.According to the Penn Wharton Budget model, when one factors in the Medicaid and Snap cuts along with the tax cuts, the Trump-House bill would cause Americans earning less than $17,000 a year to lose $1,030 on average in after-tax income starting in 2026. Households earning between $17,000 and $51,000 a year would lose around $700 on average. The very wealthy do far better. For those in the richest 0.1% – that is, households earning at least $4.3m a year – their after-tax income would jump by over $388,000.That doesn’t sound very pro-worker to me. It’s a perversion of the truth for Trump to boast of his pro-worker bona fides when he steadfastly refuses to push for the two things that would do most to lift workers’ living standards: push to raise workers’ pay and push to strengthen labor unions and worker bargaining power. Not only has Trump done nothing to increase the paltry $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage, but he killed a Biden-era regulation that required federal contractors to pay their workers at least $17.75 an hour. Now many of those workers will see their pay sink to $13.30 an hour. What’s more, Trump has sought to sabotage unions, not strengthen them. He has moved to strip 1 million federal employees of their right to bargain while also seeking to cripple the National Labor Relations Board, which protects workers’ ability to bargain for better pay and conditions.As for Trump’s call to end the tax on tips, that will help many restaurant servers and hotel housekeepers, but the Yale Budget Lab says that provision has a narrow scope and will help less than 3% of all workers.Last year, candidate Trump said: “As soon as I get to office, we will make housing much more affordable.” But second-term Trump is doing just the opposite. His budget calls for a devastating 40% cut in rental assistance that millions of Americans rely on to pay their monthly rent. Candidate Trump also said: “Your heating and air conditioning, electricity, gasoline – all can be cut down in half.” But for millions of Americans he is increasing that burden by pushing to end a program that helps six million struggling households afford to heat and cool their homes.Many blue-collar Americans are eager to send their kids to college, but Trump and House Republicans would make that harder. Around one in eight Americans have federal student loans, which have been key to enabling millions of people to afford college. But Republicans want to eliminate subsidized loans for undergraduates and increase the minimum monthly payments that low-income borrowers already have a hard time paying.Trump boasts he is pro-worker, but he is doing absolutely nothing to help with what many workers say are their biggest priorities: making housing more affordable, reducing the cost of childcare and healthcare, making it easier to send one’s kids to college, and bringing down prices. Billionaires can rejoice that Trump is capitulating to them and their priorities, but American workers shouldn’t be fooled into believing that Trump is addressing their needs.

      Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author focusing on labor and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues More

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      Trump says he’s ‘seriously considering’ taking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac public

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      Donald Trump said he will make a decision in the near future about taking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac public, a move which he said he is giving “very serious consideration”.In a post on Truth Social, the US president said he will speak with treasury secretary, Scott Bessent; commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick; and federal housing finance director, William Pulte, about doing so.He added: “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are doing very well, throwing off a lot of CASH, and the time would seem to be right. Stay tuned!”These two companies are the backbone of the US housing market. Together they support about 70% of US mortgages.Fannie and Freddie, which operate as for-profit corporations with private shareholders, were created by the US Congress to expand the national home lending market by buying home loans from private lenders and repackaging them as mortgage-backed securities.When the housing market collapsed in 2008, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac suffered overwhelming losses. To avoid catastrophic effects for the US economy, they were placed in conservatorship under the newly created Federal Housing Finance Agency.Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York and member of the Housing for US coalition, on Wednesday called on Trump to invest the expected $250bn in proceeds from the sale of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into middle-income housing, after the commander-in-chief announced he’s moving forward to release the government-sponsored enterprises from conservatorship.“President Trump is right to free Fannie and Freddie. But even better, let’s use the proceeds – some $250bn – to build middle-class housing for American workers by American workers. Housing for US stands ready to work with President Trump to make it happen.”Previous attempts to rid government control of the organizations, including under Trump’s first term in office, have been unsuccessful.In February, Bessent said the release of Fannie and Freddie from their conservatorship would depend on mortgage rate implications.“The priority for a Fannie and Freddie release, the most important metric that I’m looking at, is any study or hint that mortgage rates would go up,” Bessent said in an interview with Bloomberg.Reuters contributed to this report More

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      The US credit rating has been downgraded. But there’s an easy fix for our debt | Robert Reich

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      On Friday, the credit rating of the United States was downgraded. Moody’s, the ratings firm, announced that the government’s rising debt levels would grow further if the Trump Republican package of new tax cuts were enacted. This makes lending to the US riskier.Moody’s is the third of the three major credit-rating agencies to downgrade the credit rating of the United States.So-called “bond vigilantes” have already been selling the US government’s debt, as the Republican tax package moves through Congress. They’re expected to sell even more, driving long-term interest rates even higher to make up for the growing risk of holding US debt.Some rightwing Republicans in Congress are using the Moody’s downgrade to justify deeper spending cuts in Medicaid, food stamps and other social programs that lower-income Americans depend on.But, hello? There’s a far easier way to reduce the federal debt. Just end the Trump tax cuts that mainly benefit the wealthy and big corporations – and instead raise taxes on them.I’m old enough to remember when the US’s super-rich financed the government with their tax payments. Under Dwight Eisenhower – hardly a leftwing radical – the highest marginal tax rate was 91%. (Even after all tax credits and deductions were figured in, the super-rich paid way over half their top marginal incomes in taxes.)But since the Reagan, George W Bush and Trump 1 tax cuts, tax rates on the super-rich have plummeted.So instead of financing the government with their taxes, the super-rich have been financing the US government by lending it money.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion(You may have heard that the US’s debt is held mainly by foreigners. Wrong. More than 70% of it is held by Americans – and most of them are wealthy.)This means that an ever-increasing portion of the taxes from the rest of us are dedicated to paying ever-increasing interest payments on the debt – payments that go largely to the super-rich.So when the debt of the United States is downgraded because Trump Republicans are planning another big tax cut mainly benefiting the rich and big corporations, most Americans could end up paying in three different ways:

      They’ll pay even more interest on the growing debt – to the super-rich.

      They’ll pay higher interest rates on all other long-term debt. (As higher rates on treasury bonds waft through the economy, they raise borrowing costs on everything from mortgages to auto loans.)

      The debt crisis will give Republicans even more excuse to do what they’re always wanting to do: slash safety nets. So many Americans could lose benefits they rely on, such as Medicaid and food stamps.
      The “bond vigilantes” are not the cause of this absurdity. Neither is Moody’s or the other credit-rating agencies. Nor, for that matter, is the growing national debt.What’s the underlying cause? Just follow the money. It’s the growing political power of the super-rich and big corporations to lower their taxes at the expense of most Americans.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

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      Trump visits Capitol to urge House Republicans to pass ‘big, beautiful bill’

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      Donald Trump traveled to the Capitol on Tuesday to insist that the fractious House Republican majority set aside their differences and pass his wide-ranging bill to enact his taxation and immigration priorities.In a speech to a closed-door meeting of Republican lawmakers in Congress’s lower chamber, the president pushed representatives from districts in blue states to drop their demands for a bigger State and Local Tax (Salt) deduction, and also sought to assuage moderates concerned that the legislation, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, would hobble the Medicaid health insurance program.“I think we have unbelievable unity. I think we’re going to get everything we want, and I think we’re going to have a great victory,” Trump said as he left the meeting.But it is unclear if the president’s exhortations had the intended effect ahead of the Monday deadline that House speaker Mike Johnson has set to get the bill passed through the chamber, which Republicans control by a mere three votes. Following his meeting, at least one key lawmaker said he remained opposed to the bill as written, while others announced no changes to their position.“As it stands right now, I do not support the bill,” said New York congressman Mike Lawler, one of the Republicans representing districts in Democratic-led states that are demanding a larger Salt deduction.The next test of the bill’s prospects is scheduled for 1am on Wednesday, when the rules committee convenes for a procedural vote that, if successful, clears the way for consideration of the measure by the full House of Representatives.The nearly 1,100-page legislation is Trump’s top priority in Congress, and would codify several of his campaign promises, including making permanent or extending tax cuts enacted during his first term, temporarily ending the taxation of tips and overtime and paying for a wall along the border with Mexico and the mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.To offset its costs, House Republicans have approved slashing federal safety net programs like Medicaid, which covers poor and low income Americans, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap). But even with those cuts, the bill is estimated to cost $3.8tn through 2034, rankling rightwing fiscal hardliners who want to see the measure reduce the government’s large budget deficit.Johnson and other Republican leaders have spent weeks trying to square their demands with the blue-state Republicans and moderates wary of slashing safety net programs. As he arrived at the Capitol on Tuesday morning, Trump quickly made it known who he favored in the negotiations, insisting that “we’re not touching” Medicaid and that cuts would only hit “waste, fraud and abuse”.While Salt taxes were once fully deductible on federal returns, the tax cuts Trump signed in 2017, imposed a $10,000 cap . The president said he opposed increasing the deduction, because “we don’t want to benefit Democrat governors.”At his meeting with lawmakers, “he was emphatic, we need to quit screwing around. That was the clear message. You all have tinkered enough, it is time to land the plane,” South Dakota congressman Dusty Johnson told reporters.“Ninety-eight percent of that conference is ready to go. They were enthused. They were pumped up by the president, and I think with the holdouts, he did move them. I don’t know that we are there yet, but that was a hugely impactful meeting.”Under the bill, Medicaid would receive a $715bn budget reduction, mostly by imposing work requirements on recipients. After the meeting, Don Bacon, a Nebraska moderate who had warned against cutting Medicaid too deeply, signaled approval of the bill, saying: “We did as well as we could do.”But David Valadao, whose central California district has one of the large shares of Medicaid recipients nationwide, said he was “very concerned” about the impact of the cuts.The Democratic minority is largely powerless to stop the bill from advancing in the House, and the GOP’s use of the budget reconciliation procedure means the bill cannot be blocked by a filibuster in the Senate. Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries and James McGovern, the ranking member on the rules committee, called for the panel’s consideration of the bill to be rescheduled, noting it is currently set to take place “during the dead of night”.“It is deeply troubling that you would attempt to jam this legislation down the throats of the American people. What else are you hiding? It is imperative that you immediately reschedule the meeting so that it may be debated in the light of day,” they wrote in a letter to Johnson and the rules committee’s Republican chair.House GOP leaders cast the president’s visit as a sign to their members that it was time to stop quibbling.Majority leader Steve Scalise told a press conference after Trump departed: “President Trump had a strong and clear message to a packed House Republican conference, and that is, after months of long, intense discussions over really important differences and issues, this One Big, Beautiful Bill has come through the committee process, and it’s time to end the negotiations, unify behind this bill and get it passed on to the Senate.”Yet it was plain that there are kinks left to iron out. Johnson declined to take questions at the press conference, saying he had to leave to “gather up the small subgroups in the House Republican Conference and tie up the remaining loose ends. I’m very confident that we’ll be able to do that.” More

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      As key Israel allies threaten action over Gaza catastrophe, Washington is largely unmoved

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      As Israel orders Palestinians to evacuate Khan Younis in advance of what it calls an “unprecedented attack” on Gaza, much of Washington remains largely unmoved, even as Canada and European countries threaten “concrete actions” if Israel does not scale back its offensive.Despite reports of growing pressure from the Trump administration to increase aid into Gaza, where widespread famine looms, the White House continues to publicly back Israel. National security council spokesperson James Hewitt told the Guardian in an email: “Hamas has rejected repeated ceasefire proposals, and therefore bears sole responsibility for this conflict,” maintaining the policy stance inherited from the previous Biden administration despite mounting evidence of humanitarian catastrophe.The Israeli military on Monday instructed residents of southern Gaza’s Khan Younis to “evacuate immediately” as it prepares to “destroy the capabilities of terrorist organizations” – signalling plans for intensified bombardment in a war that has already claimed more than 53,000 Palestinian lives, according to Gaza’s health ministry.Despite Israeli promises to “flatten” Gaza, opposition from Congress – and mainstream Democrats more broadly – has been largely muted. While the besieged territory faces what the World Health Organization (Who) calls “one of the world’s worst hunger crises”, more than three dozen members of Congress from both parties recently appeared in an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) video in celebration of Israel’s 77th birthday. In New York, leading mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo held up an Israeli flag in the city’s annual Israel Day Parade on Sunday.This political genuflection comes as a March Gallup poll shows American support for Israel has dropped to 46% – its lowest point in 25 years – while sympathy for Palestinians has risen to a record 33%. Democrats reported sympathizing with Palestinians over Israelis by a three-to-one ratio.On a recent episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Senator Bernie Sanders blamed Washington’s reluctance to change course on the financial muscle of lobbying groups. “If you speak up on that issue, you’ll have super Pacs like Aipac going after you,” Sanders said, noting Aipac’s record $14.5m campaign to unseat Democratic representative Jamaal Bowman after he accused Israel of genocide.A small contingent of progressive lawmakers continue to voice opposition despite being largely iced out from public discourse in Washington. Representative Delia Ramirez of Illinois condemned the “lethal, unaccountable, extremist duo” of Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Donald Trump. “Americans have said they do not want to be complicit in their barbaric campaigns. It is time for us in Congress to exercise our power and take action. Not one more cent, not one more bomb, not one more excuse,” she told the Guardian.Representative Ilhan Omar similarly decried the latest chapter of the lopsided war on Gaza, calling it “another unconscionable moral stain”.“Despite the fanfare of Donald Trump’s trip [to the Middle East last weak], they’re not closer to a ceasefire,” Omar said. “It is deeply shameful that innocent civilians are continuing to pay the price.”Vermont senator Peter Welch recently led 29 Senate colleagues in introducing a resolution calling on the Trump administration to end the blockade of humanitarian aid. “It’s been over two months since the Israeli government has been using its power to withhold food, medicine, lifesaving cancer treatments, dialysis systems, formula, and more from starving and suffering families across Gaza,” he said.Resolutions, however, are symbolic gestures meant to publicize opinions and do not have the force of law.While the lawmakers voice their concerns, their impact on policy remains limited, representing the growing disconnect between Washington policymakers and public sentiment. That the grassroots movement for Palestinian rights in the US has grown more subdued – in large part due to an aggressive crackdown by the Trump administration against the universities that were host to last year’s protests – may take some of the pressure off for them to act.One insider familiar with discussions between the US and Israel told the Washington Post that the Americans have been hitting Israel with a tougher stance over the last few weeks. Haaretz has also reported growing pressure by the US on Israel to agree to a framework for a temporary ceasefire.“Trump’s people are letting Israel know: ‘We will abandon you if you do not end this war,’” the insider said. Trump and JD Vance both skipped over Israel on recent trips abroad, widely interpreted as a snub of Netanyahu.Netanyahu has announced the resumption of “minimal” humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the UN said on Monday that nine aid trucks were authorised to enter Gaza, a “drop in the ocean” given the scale of desperation.Whether US voices calling for change in US policy and a wind-down of the catastrophic war are just shouting in the void, may become clearer in the coming days. More