CONCORD, N.H.: President Joe Biden tore into his predecessor on Tuesday, suggesting that global leaders are terrified of what Donald Trump’s return to the White House could do to democratic rule around the world.
“Every international meeting I attend,” Biden said, specifically referencing his whirlwind trip to Germany last week, “They pull me aside — one leader after the other, quietly — and say, ‘Joe, he can’t win.’ My democracy is at stake.”
His voice rising, Biden then asked if, “America walks away, who leads the world? Who? Name me a country.”
The comments came during what was supposed to be a rather staid speech on health care in New Hampshire. They were a dose of unfiltered politics at an event otherwise focused on Biden’s policy legacy with the race to replace him just two weeks from concluding. And they made clear that the president also sees not having Trump succeed him as an important piece of how he might go down in history.
After the speech, Biden went to a campaign office to support New Hampshire Democratic candidates and continued his broadsides against Trump, even saying at one point, “We’ve got to lock him up.” Some supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris — who replaced Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket in July — have yelled that during her rallies.
That line drew applause from those assembled at the campaign office, but Biden quickly corrected himself: “Lock him out, that’s what we have to do.”
Biden didn’t mention Harris much during his comments, though he noted that she’d been endorsed by some high-profile Republicans. That includes former Rep. Liz Cheney, the GOP’s onetime No. 3 in the House and daughter of ex-Vice President Dick Cheney. Instead, Biden continued to focus on Trump, slamming him for being proud about being friends with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and joking that Trump “believes in the free press like I believe I can climb Mt. Everest.”
He said Trump and supporters of his “Make America Great Again” movement have “anti-democratic” attitudes toward the way the Constitution functions and “virtually no regard” for it.
“Think about what happens if Donald Trump were to win this election,” Biden said, adding, “He’s not joking about it, he’s deadly earnest” and “It’s a serious, serious problem.”
“We must win,” Biden said.
Biden was in New Hampshire’s capital of Concord with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the last candidate he beat to win the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. They both appeared at Concord Community College to trumpet the Department of Health and Human Services finding that almost 1.5 million Medicare enrollees saved nearly $1 billion on prescription drugs during the first half of the year.
Much of those savings came as a result of a cap on out-of-pocket drug costs created by the sweeping climate and health care law that the Biden administration helped carry through Congress in 2022. It put an annual maximum of $3,500 that recipients of Medicare, the government’s health insurance coverage plans for seniors, pay for their prescriptions while making recommended vaccines for older Americans, like immunization for shingles, free.
Biden said that seniors aren’t the only ones benefitting from the savings: “It’s also saving taxpayers billions of dollars.”
Next year, the drug cost cap for Medicare recipients falls to $2,000 per year, which will save some of the sickest Americans more. But the change has come at a price for others – it’s contributed to rising drug plan premiums that the government has tried to keep down by paying insurers billions of dollars from the Medicare trust fund. Still, some insurers have raised plan prices significantly – or pulled plans from markets.
The legislation is expected to deliver major savings in other ways, though, for taxpayers and Medicare enrollees in the long term.
For the first time ever, the federal government will negotiate the price of 10 of Medicare’s costliest drugs. The negotiated list prices, announced in August, will take effect in 2026. Taxpayers spend more than $50 billion yearly on the 10 drugs, which include popular blood thinners Xarelto and Eliquis and diabetes drugs Jardiance and Januvia.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that Medicare drug pricing negotiations will save taxpayers $3.7 billion in the first year.
But his championing of lower drug prices was overshadowed by the warnings Biden offered about Trump.
“No president has ever been like this guy. He’s a genuine threat to our democracy.”
Biden says global leaders are terrified of Trump quietly tell him, ‘He can’t win’
https://arab.news/vfag3
Biden says global leaders are terrified of Trump quietly tell him, ‘He can’t win’
- Biden says that Trump and supporters of his “Make America Great Again” movement have “anti-democratic” attitudes toward the way the Constitution functions and “virtually no regard” for it
Intense debate in Senate on Trump's big budget bill as group warns of bigger deficit and millions getting uninsured
- Review says 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill becomes law
- It also said the package would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion over the decade
WASHINGTON: Debate is underway in the Senate for an all-night session Sunday, with Republicans wrestling President Donald Trump’s big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts over mounting Democratic opposition — and even some brake-pumping over the budget slashing by the president himself.
The outcome from the weekend of work in the Senate remains uncertain and highly volatile. GOP leaders are rushing to meet Trump’s Fourth of July deadline to pass the package, but they barely secured enough support to muscle it past a procedural hurdle in a tense scene the day before. A handful of Republican holdouts revolted, and it took phone calls from Trump and a visit from Vice President JD Vance to keep it on track.
GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina announced Sunday he would not seek reelection after Trump badgered him for saying he could not vote for the bill with its steep Medicaid cuts. A new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget
Office found that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law. It also said the package would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion over the decade.
But other Senate Republicans, along with conservatives in the House, are pushing for steeper cuts, particularly to health care, drawing their own unexpected warning from Trump.
“Don’t go too crazy!” the president posted on social media. “REMEMBER, you still have to get reelected.”
All told, the Senate bill includes some $4 trillion in tax cuts, making permanent Trump’s 2017 rates, which would expire at the end of the year if Congress fails to act, while adding the new ones he campaigned on, including no taxes on tips.
The Senate package would roll back billions in green energy tax credits that Democrats warn will wipe out wind and solar investments nationwide, and impose $1.2 trillion in cuts, largely to Medicaid and food stamps, by imposing work requirements and making sign-up eligibility more stringent.
Additionally, the bill would provide a $350 billion infusion for border and national security, including for deportations, some of it paid for with new fees charged to immigrants.
If the Senate can push through overnight voting and pass the bill, it would need to return to the House. Speaker Mike Johnson has told lawmakers to be on call for a return to Washington this coming week.
Democrats ready to fight all night
Unable to stop the march toward passage of the 940-page bill, the Democrats as the minority party in Congress is using the tools at its disposal to delay and drag out the process.
Democrats forced a full reading of the text, which took some 16 hours. Then senators took over the debate, filling the chamber with speeches, while Republicans largely stood aside.
“Reckless and irresponsible,” said Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan. “A gift to the billionaire class,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Sen. Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, raised particular concern about the accounting method being used by the Republicans, which says the tax breaks from Trump’s first term are now “current policy” and the cost of extending them should not be counted toward deficits.
“In my 33 years here in the United States Senate, things have never — never — worked this way,” said Murray, the longest-serving Democrat on the Budget Committee.
She said that kind of “magic math” won’t fly with Americans trying to balance their own household books.
“Go back home and try that game with your constituents,” she said. “We still need to kick people off their health care — that’s too expensive. We still need to close those hospitals — we have to cut costs. And we still have to kick people off SNAP — because the debt is out of control.”
Sanders said Tillis’ decision not to seek reelection shows the hold that Trump’s cult of personality has over the GOP.
“We are literally taking food out of the mouths of hungry kids,” Sanders said, while giving tax breaks to Jeff Bezos and other wealthy billionaires.
GOP leaders unphased
Republicans are using their majorities to push aside Democratic opposition, and appeared undeterred, even as they have run into a series of political and policy setbacks.
“We’re going to pass the ‘Big, beautiful bill,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the Budget Committee chairman.
The holdout Republicans remain reluctant to give their votes, and their leaders have almost no room to spare, given their narrow majorities. Essentially, they can afford three dissenters in the Senate, with its 53-47 GOP edge, and about as many in the House, if all members are present and voting.
Trump, who has at times allowed wiggle room on his deadline, kept the pressure on lawmakers to finish.
He threatened to campaign aginst Tillis, who was worried that Medicaid cuts would leave many without health care in his state. Trump badgered Tillis again on Sunday morning, saying the senator “has hurt the great people of North Carolina.”
Later Sunday, Tillis issued a lengthy statement announcing he would not seek reelection in 2026.
In an impassioned evening speech, Tillis shared his views arguing the Senate approach is a betrayal of Trump’s promise not to kick people off health care.
“We could take the time to get this right,” he thundered. But until then, he said he would remain opposed.
Democrats can’t filibuster, but can stall
Using a congressional process called budget reconciliation, the Republicans can muscle the bill through on a simple majority vote in the Senate, rather than the typical 60-vote threshold needed to overcome objections.
Without the filibuster, Democrats have latched on to other tools to mount their objections.
One is the full reading of the bill text, which has been done in past situations. Democrats also intend to use their full 10 hours of available debate time, now underway.
And then Democrats are prepared to propose dozens of amendments to the package that would be considered in an all-night voting session — or all-day, depending on the hour.
GOP senators to watch
As Saturday’s vote tally teetered, attention turned to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who was surrounded by GOP leaders in intense conversation. She voted “yes.”
Several provisions in the package are designed for her state in Alaska, but some were out of compliance of the strict rules by the Senate parliamentarian.
A short time later, Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., drew holdouts Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming to his office. Vance joined in.
Later, Scott said, “We all want to get to yes.”
Thousands set up street blockades in Serbia after arrests of anti-government protesters
- Tens of thousands of people attended the rally held after nearly eight months of persistent dissent that has rattled populist President Aleksandar Vucic
BELGRADE, Serbia: Thousands of people Sunday set up street blockades in Serbia, angry over the arrest of anti-government protesters who clashed with police at a massive rally a day earlier demanding early elections.
Protesters put up metal fences and garbage containers at various locations in the capital Belgrade, also blocking a key bridge over the Sava river. Protesters in the northern city of Novi Sad pelted the offices of the ruling populist Serbian Progressive Party with eggs.
Serbian media said similar protest blockades were organized in smaller cities in the Balkan country.
Protesters on Sunday demanded that authorities release dozens of university students and other protesters who were jailed for attacking the police or for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government at the rally Saturday in Belgrade.
Tens of thousands of people attended the rally held after nearly eight months of persistent dissent that has rattled populist President Aleksandar Vucic.
Protesters also declared the current populist government “illegitimate” and laid the responsibility for any violence on the government.
Clashes with riot police erupted after the official part of the rally ended. Police used pepper spray, batons and shields while protesters threw rocks, bottles and other objects.
Police said on Sunday that 48 officers were injured while 22 protesters sought medical help. Out of 77 people detained, 38 remained in custody Sunday, most of them facing criminal charges, said Interior Minister Ivica Dacic.
At least eight more people were detained during the day, the prosecutors said.
Vucic earlier Sunday announced the arrests at a press conference, accusing organizers of the rally of inciting violence and attacks on police, urging legal prosecution.
He also criticized “terrorists and those who tried to bring down the state,” singling out University of Belgrade’s head dean, Vladan Djokic, who was among the protesters.
“There will be more arrests,” Vucic said. “Identification of all individuals is underway.”
Anti-government protests started after a renovated rail station canopy collapsed in November, killing 16 people. Many in Serbia blamed the tragedy in the northern city of Novi Sad on corruption-fueled negligence in state infrastructure projects.
Vucic has repeatedly rejected the student demand for an immediate snap vote instead of regular elections planned for 2027.
“Serbia won. You cannot destroy Serbia with violence,” Vucic said Sunday. “They consciously wanted to spur bloodshed. The time of accountability is coming.”
Critics say Vucic has become increasingly authoritarian since coming to power over a decade ago, stifling democratic freedoms while allowing corruption and organized crime to flourish. He has denied this.
Serbia is formally seeking European Union entry, but Vucic’s government has nourished its relations with both Russia and China.
How Democrats in America’s most Jewish city embraced a critic of Israel for New York mayor
- Mamdani’s success reflects the ideological realignment of many American Jews since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel that led to Israel’s invasion of Gaza
NEW YORK: In choosing Zohran Mamdani as their candidate for mayor, Democrats in America’s most Jewish city have nominated an outspoken critic of Israel, alarming some in New York’s Jewish community and signaling a sea change in the priorities of one of the party’s most loyal voting groups.
The 33-year-old democratic socialist’s surprisingly strong performance against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo makes clear that taking a stance against Israel is no longer disqualifying in a Democratic primary. The state Assembly member has declined to support the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, refused to denounce the term “global intifada” and supports an organized effort to put economic pressure on Israel through boycotts and other tactics.
Yet he excelled in the city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, and with the support of many Jewish voters.
Mamdani’s success reflects the ideological realignment of many American Jews since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel that led to Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Many Democratic voters, including Jews, have grown dismayed by Israel’s conduct in the war and are deeply critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That is especially true among younger, more progressive voters, many of whom have rejected the once-broadly accepted notion that anti-Israel sentiment is inherently antisemitic.
For others, Mamdani’s showing has spurred new fears about safety and the waning influence of Jewish voters in a city where anti-Jewish hate crime has surged. Last year, Jews were the target of more than half of the hate crimes in the city.
“Definitely people are concerned,” said Rabbi Shimon Hecht, of Congregation B’nai Jacob in Brooklyn, who said he has heard from congregants in recent days who hope Mamdani will be beaten in the November general election, where he will face Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent, Republican Curtis Sliwa, and possibly Cuomo, if he stays in the race.
“I think like every upsetting election, it’s a wake-up call for people,” Hecht said. “I strongly believe that he will not be elected as our next mayor, but it’s going to take a lot of uniting among the Jewish people and others who are concerned about these issues. We have to unify.”
Veteran New York Democratic political strategist Hank Sheinkopf put it more bluntly, predicting a hasty exodus of religious Jews from the city and a decline in long-standing Jewish influence that would be replicated elsewhere.
“It’s the end of Jewish New York as we know it,” he said, adding: “New York is a petri dish for national Democratic politics. And what happened here is what will likely happen in cities across the country.”
Israel was a key campaign issue
Mamdani’s top Democratic rival, the former governor, had called antisemitism and support for Israel “the most important issue” of the campaign.
Mamdani’s backers repeatedly accused Cuomo of trying to weaponize the issue. Many drew parallels to the way Republican President Donald Trump has cast any criticism of Israel’s actions as antisemitic, claiming Jews who vote for Democrats “hate Israel” and their own religion.
For some Mamdani supporters, the election results signaled a rejection by voters of one of Cuomo’s arguments: that an upstart socialist with pro-Palestinian views posed a threat to New York’s Jewish community.
Many were focused on issues such as affordability in a notoriously expensive city, or flat-out opposed to Cuomo, who was forced to resign in disgrace amid sexual harassment allegations.
Aiyana Leong Knauer, a 35-year-old Brooklyn bartender who is Jewish and backed Mamdani, said the vote represented “New Yorkers, many of them Jewish, saying we care more about having an affordable city than sowing division.”
“Many of us take really deep offense to our history being weaponized against us,” she said. “Jewish people all over the world have well-founded fears for their safety, but Jews in New York are safe overall.”
Others agreed with Mamdani’s views on Israel.
Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, an anti-Zionist, progressive group that worked on Mamdani’s behalf, said Mamdani “was actually pretty popular among a lot of Jewish voters.”
“That is not in spite of his support for Palestinian rights. That is because of his support for Palestinian rights,” she said. “There has been a massive rupture within the Jewish community and more and more Jews of all generations, but especially younger generations,” she said, now refuse to be tied to what they see as a rogue government committing atrocities against civilians.
Polls show support for Israel has declined since the war began. Overall, a slight majority of Americans now express a “somewhat” or “very” unfavorable opinion of Israel, according to a March Pew Research Center poll, compared with 42 percent in 2022. Democrats’ views are particularly negative, with nearly 70 percent holding an unfavorable opinion versus less than 40 percent of Republicans.
Beyond the mayoral race
Mamdani’s wasn’t the only race where Israel was on voters’ minds.
In Brooklyn, City Councilwoman Shahana Hanif, who represents Park Slope and surrounding areas, drew criticism for her Palestinian advocacy. Some said she had failed to respond forcefully to antisemitic incidents in the district.
Yet Hanif, the first Muslim woman elected to the City Council, easily beat her top challenger, Maya Kornberg, who is Jewish, despite an influx of money from wealthy, pro-Israel groups and donors.
That outcome dismayed Ramon Maislen, a developer who launched Brooklyn BridgeBuilders to oppose Hanif’s reelection and said antisemitism did not seem to resonate with voters.
“We were very disappointed with our neighbors’ response,” he said.
While campaigning against Hanif, he said he was routinely screamed at by residents and accused of supporting genocide.
“I think that those of us in the Jewish community that are attuned to that are cognizant that there’s been some kind of cultural sea change that’s occurring,” he said. “What we’re seeing is a legitimatization of hatred that isn’t happening in any other liberal or progressive space.”
Mamdani’s record and rhetoric
Mamdani has repeatedly pledged to fight antisemitism, including during an appearance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” where he was grilled on his stance. He was joined on the show by city comptroller and fellow candidate Brad Lander, the city’s highest-ranking Jewish official, who had cross-endorsed him. He has also said he would increase funding for anti-hate crime programming by 800 percent.
But many of his comments have angered Jewish groups and officials, most notably his refusal to disavow the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which has been used as a slogan in recent protests. Many Jews see it as a call to violence against Israeli civilians. In a podcast interview, Mamdani said the phrase captured a “a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights.”
Given another opportunity to condemn the phrase, Mamdani on Sunday told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that it was not his role to police speech and he pledged to be a mayor who “protects Jewish New Yorkers and lives up to that commitment through the work that I do.”
Mamdani also supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which aims to pressure governments, schools and other institutions to boycott Israeli products, divest from companies that support the country, and impose sanctions. The Anti-Defamation League calls it antisemitic and part of a broader campaign to “delegitimize and isolate the State of Israel.”
Mamdani has also said that, as mayor, he would arrest Netanyahu if the Israeli leader tried to enter the city.
The ADL in a statement Thursday warned candidates and their supporters not to use “language playing into dangerous antisemitic canards that time and time again have been used to incite hatred and violence against Jews.”
In his victory speech, Mamdani alluded to the criticism he’d received and said he would not abandon his beliefs. But he also said he would “reach further to understand the perspectives of those with whom I disagree and to wrestle deeply with those disagreements.”
Trump blasts ‘communist’ winner of NY Democratic primary
- Trump’s White House has repeatedly threatened to curb funding for Democratic-led US cities if they oppose his policies, including cutting off money to so-called sanctuary cities which limit their cooperation with immigration authorities
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump branded the winner of New York City’s mayoral Democratic primary a “pure communist” in remarks that aired Sunday, an epithet the progressive candidate dismissed as political theatrics.
Zohran Mamdani’s shock win last week against a scandal-scarred political heavyweight resonated as a thunderclap within the party, and drew the ire of Trump and his collaborators, who accused Mamdani of being a radical extremist.
The Republican’s aggressive criticism of the self-described democratic socialist is sure to ramp up over the coming months as Trump’s party seeks to push Democrats away from the political center and frame them as too radical to win major US elections.
“He’s pure communist” and a “radical leftist... lunatic,” Trump fumed on Fox News talk show “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.”
“I think it’s very bad for New York,” added Trump, who grew up in the city and built his sprawling real estate business there.
“If he does get in, I’m going to be president and he is going to have to do the right thing (or) they’re not getting any money” from the federal government.
Trump’s White House has repeatedly threatened to curb funding for Democratic-led US cities if they oppose his policies, including cutting off money to so-called sanctuary cities which limit their cooperation with immigration authorities.
Mamdani also took to the talk shows Sunday, asserting he would “absolutely” maintain New York’s status as a sanctuary city so that “New Yorkers can get out of the shadows and into the full life of the city that they belong to.”
Asked directly on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether he is a communist, Mamdani — a 33-year-old immigrant aiming to become New York’s first Muslim mayor — responded “No, I am not.
“And I have already had to start to get used to the fact that the president will talk about how I look, how I sound, where I’m from, who I am, ultimately because he wants to distract from what I’m fighting for,” Mamdani said.
“I’m fighting for the very working people that he ran a campaign to empower, that he has since then betrayed.”
The Ugandan-born state assemblyman had trailed former governor Andrew Cuomo in polls but surged on a message of lower rents, free daycare and buses, and other populist ideas in the notoriously expensive metropolis.
Although registered Democrats outnumber Republicans three to one in New York, victory for Mamdani in November is not assured.
Current Mayor Eric Adams is a Democrat but is campaigning for re-election as an independent, while Cuomo may also run unaffiliated.
US Senate pushes ahead on Trump tax cuts as nonpartisan analysis raises price tag
- The Senate only narrowly advanced the tax-cut, immigration, border and military spending bill in a procedural vote late on Saturday, voting 51-49 to open debate on the 940-page megabill
WASHINGTON: The US Senate version of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending bill will add $3.3 trillion to the nation’s debt, about $800 billion more than the version passed last month by the House of Representatives, a nonpartisan forecaster said on Sunday.
The Congressional Budget Office issued its estimate of the bill’s hit to the $36.2 trillion federal debt as Senate Republicans sought to push the bill forward in a marathon weekend session.
Republicans, who have long voiced concern about growing US deficits and debt, have rejected the CBO’s longstanding methodology to calculate the cost of legislation. But Democrats hope the latest, eye-widening figure could stoke enough anxiety among fiscally-minded conservatives to get them to buck their party, which controls both chambers of Congress.
The Senate only narrowly advanced the tax-cut, immigration, border and military spending bill in a procedural vote late on Saturday, voting 51-49 to open debate on the 940-page megabill.
Trump on social media hailed Saturday’s vote as a “great victory” for his “great, big, beautiful bill.”
In an illustration of the depths of the divide within the Republican Party over the bill, Senator Thom Tillis said he would not seek re-election next year, after Trump threatened to back a primary challenger in retribution for Tillis’ Saturday night vote against the bill.
Tillis’ North Carolina seat is one of the few Republican Senate seats seen as vulnerable in next year’s midterm elections. He was one of just two Republicans to vote no on Saturday.
Trump wants the bill passed before the July 4 Independence Day holiday. While that deadline is one of choice, lawmakers will face a far more serious deadline later this summer when they must raise the nation’s self-imposed debt ceiling or risk a devastating default on $36.2 trillion in debt.
“We are going to make sure hardworking people can keep more of their money,” Senator Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican, told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.
HITS TO BENEFITS
Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, said this legislation would come to haunt Republicans if it gets approved, predicting 16 million Americans would lose their health insurance.
“Many of my Republican friends know ... they’re walking the plank on this and we’ll see if those who’ve expressed quiet consternation will actually have the courage of their convictions,” Warner told CBS News’ “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
The legislation has been the sole focus of a marathon weekend congressional session marked by political drama, division and lengthy delays as Democrats seek to slow the legislation’s path to passage.
Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer called for the entire text of the bill to be read on the Senate floor, a process that began before midnight Saturday and ran well into Sunday afternoon. Following that lawmakers will begin up to 20 hours of debate on the legislation. That will be followed by an amendment session, known as a “vote-a-rama,” before the Senate votes on passage. Lawmakers said they hoped to complete work on the bill on Monday.
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, the other Republican “no” vote, opposed the legislation because it would raise the federal borrowing limit by an additional $5 trillion.
“Did Rand Paul Vote ‘NO’ again tonight? What’s wrong with this guy???” Trump said on social media.
The megabill would extend the 2017 tax cuts that were Trump’s main legislative achievement during his first term as president, cut other taxes and boost spending on the military and border security.
Representative Michael McCaul, however, warned that fellow Republicans who do not back Trump on the bill could face payback from voters.
“They know that their jobs are at risk. Not just from the president, but from the voting — the American people. Our base back home will not reelect us to office if we vote no on this,” McCaul also told CBS News.
Senate Republicans, who reject the CBO’s estimates on the cost of the legislation, are set on using an alternative calculation method that does not factor in costs from extending the 2017 tax cuts. Outside tax experts, like Andrew Lautz from the nonpartisan think tank Bipartisan Policy Center, call it a “magic trick.”
Using this calculation method, the Senate Republicans’ budget bill appears to cost substantially less and seems to save $500 billion, according to the BPC analysis.
If the Senate passes the bill, it will then return to the House of Representatives for final passage before Trump can sign it into law. The House passed its version of the bill last month.
