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How will Brownback's departure affect Democrats? Not much, they say Wichita Eagle Kansas Democrats are preparing for the departure of arguably their biggest foe Gov. Sam Brownback by staying the course. Brownback was nominated by President Donald Trump last week to be ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. and more »

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How will Brownback's departure affect Democrats? Not much, they say - Wichita Eagle

TheWhite House budget director on Wednesday said tax reform looks "weaker" with Democrats on it.

During an interview on "Fox & Friends," Mick Mulvaney was asked if he thinks Republicans can get tax reform passed without needing Democrats' votes.

"You have a choice. You can either try and do it with 50 votes in the Senate, using what's called budget reconciliation, or 60 votes in the Senate without," he said.

Mulvaney said tax reform is necessary to get the American economy back at 3 percent economic growth.

"That's absolutely critical, and tax reform is a central feature in that," he said.

His comments come after Senate Democrats earlier this week urged Republicans to work with them on bipartisan tax reform.

In a letter addressed to President Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Finance Committee ChairmanOrrin Hatch (R-Utah), Senate Democratsexpressed "interest in working with you on bipartisan tax reform." The letter said by working together, lawmakers could modernize the country's tax system.

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OMB director: Tax reform looks 'weaker' with Democrats on it - The Hill

The survey shows a generic Democrat leading a generic Republican, 44 percent to 37 percent, with 19 percent of registered voters undecided. | Zach Gibson/Getty Images

Republicans trail Democrats by 7 percentage points on the generic congressional ballot, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, the Democratic Party's greatest advantage on the generic ballot since the poll began asking the question this past spring.

The survey, conducted last Thursday through Saturday, shows a generic Democrat leading a generic Republican, 44 percent to 37 percent, with 19 percent of registered voters undecided. The two parties were tied, 40 percent apiece, in the previous weeks poll.

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The results came on the heels of a week in which the GOP effort to repeal Obamacare crashed and burned in the Senate and President Donald Trumps chief of staff left the White House abruptly.

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Democrats previous high-water mark on the generic ballot question which asks voters which party they would support in a congressional election without mentioning specific candidate names had been a 6-point lead in early May.

Democratic voters back the Democratic candidate by an almost-unanimous margin, 90 percent to 2 percent. Republicans are slightly less unified, supporting the GOP candidate, 85 percent to 5 percent. Among independents, the Democrat leads, 34 percent to 25 percent, with 41 percent undecided.

Even as the GOP slumped on the generic ballot, Trumps approval ratings held fairly steady over the past week. In the new poll, 42 percent of voters approve of the job he is doing as president, while 53 percent disapprove. Last week, 43 percent of voters approved of Trump, and 52 percent disapproved.

Still, the long-term trend for Trump has been downward and it has the potential to drag down Republicans in elections this year and into the 2018 midterms.

"In our poll taken immediately following President Trump's inauguration, 31 percent of independent voters disapproved of him," said Morning Consult Co-founder and Chief Research Officer Kyle Dropp. "In this latest poll, that number has nearly doubled to 56 percent. What's more, the percentage of voters who 'strongly' disapprove has jumped from 23 percent to 41 percent in that same time period."

That slide connects to the GOPs electoral prospects. Among voters who strongly approve of Trump in the new poll, 79 percent of them prefer the Republican congressional candidate, while 8 percent would vote for the Democrat. By contrast, 80 percent of voters who strongly disapprove of Trump would vote for the Democrat, and 8 percent would back the Republican.

The problem for Republicans: While 41 percent of the electorate strongly disapproves of Trump, far fewer, only 22 percent, strongly approve of his job performance.

Intensity isn't the only worry for the GOP: There is the basic fact that more voters disapprove of the job Trump is doing than approve. In the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, 71 percent of voters who approve of Trump's job performance even somewhat would vote for the Republican candidate, compared to 72 percent of those who disapprove who are backing the Democrat.

The new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll was conducted during a tumultuous close to the week for Trump and his party. The poll was already in the field early Friday morning, when the Senate voted down the latest GOP bill to repeal parts of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Similarly, some interviews had already been conducted when Trump announced that he was replacing Chief of Staff Reince Priebus with John Kelly, the now-former secretary of homeland security.

Previously released poll results show a majority of voters believe the Trump White House is running chaotically, even before some of the most recent turnover.

The poll was fielded after Trump sharply criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions in public comments and on Twitter. A 53-percent majority of voters say Trumps statement that he would not have appointed Sessions if he knew the then-senator would later recuse himself from the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election is inappropriate; only 27 percent say Trumps comments are appropriate.

In another controversial statement last week, Trump announced on Twitter that the U.S. would not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in the military, though any transgender ban has yet to take effect. Voters generally disagree with Trump: By a 68 percent to 21 percent margin, voters believe the U.S. should allow transgender members of the military to continue serving. And 55 percent say the military should allow transgender individuals to join, while only 31 percent say they should be barred from joining.

Sixty-seven percent of voters do say, however, that the military shouldnt pay for gender-transition expenses, compared to only 21 percent who think the military should pay for that treatment. Trump cited tremendous medical costs for transgender personnel in explaining his decision.

The poll surveyed 1,972 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Morning Consult is a nonpartisan media and technology company that provides data-driven research and insights on politics, policy and business strategy.

More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in these two documents Toplines: http://politi.co/2vbZQxk | Crosstabs: http://politi.co/2vmabHg

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Poll: Democrats surge ahead on generic ballot - Politico

WASHINGTON Still stinging from last week's health care defeat in the Senate, congressional Republicans are looking to move forward on another one of their major legislative goals tax reform. And emboldened Democrats Tuesday made clear their demands that any effort to restructure the nation's tax code be conducted on a bipartisan basis.

As long as both Donald Trump and our Republican colleagues try to go it alone, theyre going to have a very rough time, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

All but three of the Senate Democrats sent a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell laying out Democratic conditions for tax reform, including an insistence that Republicans drop plans to advance the legislation through reconciliation a process that would eliminate the need for Democratic votes.

Theres a lot to work with here if you want to reject the my way or highway politics, said Sen. Ron Wyden, R-Ore., and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee.

The demands also include no tax cuts for the nation's top one percent of wage earners and an insistence that any reform not raise the federal debt.

McConnell responded that Republicans will go it alone in order to get their own priorities passed.

We will need to use reconciliation because we have been informed by the majority of Democrats, in the letter I just received today, that most of the principles that would get the country growing again, theyre not interested in addressing, McConnell said.

Republican goals for individual tax reform include making the tax code simpler and lowering rates. They also want to reduce corporate taxes, which they say will provide incentives for job creation and investment.

Reconciliation, which requires only a simple majority instead of the usual 60-vote threshold to pass legislation, was also the process used during the recent health care push. It was supposed to make it easier to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but 50 Republicans couldnt agree on the details.

Ramming tax cuts through under reconciliation the very same partisan process that failed for health care is the wrong way to do the business of the country, Schumer said Tuesday.

Despite McConnell's pronouncement, some Republicans said they still have hopes that tax reform is not strictly partisan.

Im not going to give up on anything, said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees tax reform.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., another Finance Committee member and part of the GOP leadership team, said hes also open to working with Democrats.

I would like to see us at least attempt to work with the Democrats to see if there are any of them who are willing to work with us on tax reform that we think truly is pro-growth, Thune told reporters.

The key word, however, is pro-growth" and Republicans' strict definition of it. The party outlined last week the broad measures of a plan theyve been working on for more than two months. We have always been in agreement that tax relief for American families should be at the heart of our plan, the plan says, indicating that Republicans want to lower rates for even the wealthy, something Democrats dont want to do.

Three Democrats didn't sign Schumer's letter: Sens. Joe Manchin D-W. Va., Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., and Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D. All three are centrists who are up for re-election in 2018 and could be members Republicans reach out to for possible Democratic support.

Schumer insisted on Tuesday that bipartisanship is necessary.

Were not going to get it all our way. There will be compromises. Thats what its all about; that's what the Founding Fathers created in this country," Schumer said. "Were urging our Republican colleagues not to go it alone but to work with us. Now that might mean their dream of huge tax cuts on the rich and almost crumbs or nothing for the middle class wont happen."

Key Republican leaders McConnell, Hatch, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and House Ways and Means Committee Chair Kevin Brady have been meeting with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and White House chief economic adviser Gary Cohn for more than two months, working on the broad points of tax reform.

Republicans say that the committees will write the legislation over the next month and hold hearings in September where Democrats can offer amendments and vote throughout the process.

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Democrats Demand Bipartisanship on Tax Reform - NBCNews.com

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, is gaining more buzz as a 2020 candidate for president.

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A daily roundup of the biggest stories in right-wing media.

On Tuesday, conservatives continued to assess the Democrats electoral prospects in 2018 and beyond. Several outlets ran posts on the skepticism rising from the partys left wing,highlighted in a Mic article Monday, about Sen. Kamala Harris of California as a 2020 presidential candidate. Breitbarts Joel Pollak:

The Daily Caller cited criticism of the Mic article from MSNBC host Joy Reid among others. These early scuffles are likely going to be emblematic of how Democrats choose a candidate for 2020, the Caller's Justin Caruso wrote. Many see a split in left-leaning voters between those who think lefty identity politics is key, and that liberal economics dont need to tack too much further to the left, and those who think that economic policy must be taken much further to the left, while identity politics is seen as somewhat less important.

The Daily Wire ran a post on reports that Obama advisers are encouraging former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick to run. Patrick has been piling up money working as a managing director at Bain Capital, the same company Democrats vilified when they attacked Mitt Romney, the Wires Hank Berrien noted. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1982, he failed the State Bar of California twice before he passed on his third try.

The Daily Wire also puslihed an item on polling from the Democrats House Majority PAC that suggests the party may continue having trouble with white, working-class voters. The Wires John Nolte:

This echoed criticism Monday night from Fox News Jesse Watters of statements made by CNNs Fareed Zakaria partially attributing Trumps win to racism and xenophobia:

Some outlets ran posts assessing new White House Chief of Staff John Kelly in the wake of the firing of Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci. The Washington Free Beacons Cameron Cawthorne cited the widespread and respect for Kelly. John Kelly has received bipartisan praise from both Republicans and Democrats since President Donald Trump announced Friday that he would replace Reince Priebus as the new White House chief of staff, he wrote. Kelly, a no-nonsense, whip-cracking retired Marine general, developed a reputation during his tenure as secretary of homeland security in the Trump administration as someone not afraid to stand up to Trump when he needed to offer some tough talk, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. In National Review, Elliot Kaufman expressed concern about the penetration of military men like Kelly into Trumps inner circle:

Already, Trump has shown incredible deference to his generals, delegating control over troop levels in Afghanistan to Mattis and the Pentagon. Some may mistakenly find this abandonment of civilian political control reassuring, but they forget that War is too important to be left to the generals, as Georges Clemenceau once put it.

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Today in Conservative Media: The Democrats Are Still a Mess - Slate Magazine (blog)