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Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) warned that there would be bipartisan backlash against President Trump if he fires special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the probe into Russia meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign.

If he fired Bob Mueller, I think hed see a tremendous backlash response from both Democrats but also House Republicans, he said.

Trump has recently blasted Mueller for announcing that he is looking into Trumps business finances as part of the Russia probe, after the president said he thinks its a violation of the guidelines for the probe. Trump added that he would consider firing Mueller as special counsel.

McCaul said Republicans are frustrated with trying to pass legislation on healthcare and tax reform, and said he hopes Trump will stay on message with a shakeup in the White House press office.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer announced he would resign from his post Friday, after the press office appointed Anthony Scaramucci as the communication director.

It is frustrating, McCaul said. I hope with the new team with the new people around him perhaps he can get back on message.

We want a more disciplined White House on message so we can stay on message and get the things done what we need to get done.

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GOP lawmaker warns: Trump would face Republican backlash if he fires Mueller - The Hill

Associated Press

Saturday, July 22, 2017 | 1 a.m.

WASHINGTON Republicans aren't usually big on raising taxes, but they're really eager to eliminate the federal deduction for state and local taxes.

Why? A look at the states that benefit the most from the tax break helps explain it they are all Democratic strongholds. New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and California top the list of states where taxpayers get the biggest deductions. Not a single Republican-leaning state ranks in the top 10.

"Although Republicans usually recoil at any type of tax increase, cutting this tax break would almost be fun for them," said Martin Sullivan, chief economist for Tax Analysts. "It provides massively disproportionate deductions to high-tax states controlled by Democrats."

Proposals by House Republican leaders and President Donald Trump would repeal the tax break as part of their packages to overhaul the American tax code. But they are getting a lot of pushback from Republican lawmakers in Democratic-controlled states.

The standoff illustrates how hard it is for Congress to eliminate any popular tax break, even one that primarily benefits the ruling party's political opponents.

Almost 44 million claimed the deduction in 2014, according to IRS statistics. That's nearly every taxpayer who itemizes deductions, a little less than 30 percent of all taxpayers. Sullivan analyzed which states would be hit hardest by repealing the tax deduction. The Associated Press did a similar analysis and came to the same conclusion.

Nationally, the average deduction is about $11,800, but it is much bigger in many blue states. New York is tops with an average deduction of more than $21,000. Connecticut is next at $18,900, followed by New Jersey at $17,200 and California at $17,100.

These are states with high property values, high costs of living, high incomes and relatively high state and local taxes compared to other states. They are also states President Donald Trump lost in last year's election. Though the president is from New York, he lost the state to Democrat Hillary Clinton by 22 percentage points.

The highest-ranked state won by Trump is Wisconsin, which came in at No. 13, with an average deduction of $11,300.

At the bottom is Alaska, with an average deduction of $4,800. It is followed by Tennessee and Alabama. Among the bottom 10 states, Nevada and New Mexico are the only ones won by Clinton.

The deduction allows taxpayers to write off real estate taxes, and state and local income taxes. If your state doesn't have an income tax, you can deduct sales taxes. The deduction is heavily weighted to families with high incomes. Seventy-five percent of the benefits went to families making more than $100,000.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, says eliminating a tax break that helps some people will help lawmakers lower tax rates for everyone.

"We're proposing a much simpler code with lower rates where everyone gets help whether they are paying their state and local taxes or they are putting their kids in college," said Brady, who chairs the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.

Eliminating the tax break would raise $1.3 trillion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, money that could be used to help pay for lower income tax rates.

The House Republican plan would eliminate most itemized deductions while nearly doubling the standard deduction, to $24,000 for married couples. Notably, the plan would keep the deductions for mortgage interest and charitable contributions.

The White House and congressional Republicans have been privately negotiating their tax package for weeks, with no public sign that they're near a consensus. Democrats have been excluded from the talks.

Some Republicans claim the deduction for state and local taxes encourages states to spend and tax more because the taxes can be deducted at the federal level. Some also complain that the deduction forces low-tax Republican states to subsidize high taxes in Democratic states.

However, many blue-state Republicans don't buy those arguments. They note that most high-cost blue states send more tax dollars to Washington than they receive in federal benefits. And who benefits from those tax dollars? Low-cost red states where incomes are generally lower.

"If we're going to have a discussion about who is subsidizing whom, it must be across the board. It can't be just one provision," said Rep. Leonard Lance, R-N.J.

Lance is teaming up with Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr., D-N.J., in an effort to maintain the tax break.

"In New Jersey, (the deduction) encourages very strong public schools," Lance said. "I want to maintain strong public schools. For there to be strong public schools, there has to be adequate spending."

Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., said he brings up the deduction every time he sees Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, one of Trump's top advisers on taxes.

"The minute he walked into the room and saw me he pointed and said, 'I know, state and local tax deduction,'" MacArthur said.

"I know the White House is committed to bringing taxes down for everybody," MacArthur said. "But people in high-tax states under the plan they're proposing would basically be at a break-even while everyone else in the county enjoys tax relief. That's not fair."

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Republicans embrace tax hike targeting Democratic states - Las Vegas Sun

Republican lawmakers on Thursday were unsure of whether they would be able to find the votes to pass their 2018 budget plan anytime soon, even though the plan was easily approved in the House Budget Committee a day earlier.

The GOP needs a budget to pass tax reform this year, since the budget will set up privileged legislation on tax reform that couldn't be filibustered by Democrats in the Senate.

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy did not schedule the fiscal year 2018 budget resolution "Building a Better America, for a vote next week, which is the final legislative session before a scheduled five-week recess.

McCarthy told the Washington Examiner GOP leaders are going to determine the level of Republican support for the measure, which is to serve as the legislative vehicle for tax reform, a top Republican agenda goal. Conservatives and moderates are at loggerheads over the size of domestic spending cuts, and lawmakers are also clamoring for information about the undisclosed tax plan that is to serve as the centerpiece of the legislation.

"We are working through it," McCarthy told the Washington Examiner.

Prospects for the measure were bolstered Wednesday night when the House Budget Committee passed it along party lines without any Republican defectors, even though some conservative critics sit on the panel.

Conservative Dave Brat, R-Va., was among the lawmakers who voted for the bill after criticizing it. Brat was seeking to double the $203 billion in domestic spending cuts called for in the $4 trillion plan and said he has not decided whether he will back the bill on the House floor.

"We should have done more to tackle mandatory spending levels in this budget," Brat said in a statement. "While I am not happy with some of this budget product and am not yet prepared to vote for it on the House floor, passing it out of committee is an important step in keeping our promise to keep tax reform momentum and get it on President Trump's desk. I hope conservative concerns can be adequately addressed through an amendment process on the House floor."

Another Budget Committee Republican who voted for the plan, Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., may not vote for final passage, a GOP aide said.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who is chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told the Washington Examiner that more than three dozen lawmakers do not support the budget plan, which is enough to sink the legislation since it must pass entirely with GOP votes.

Moderate Republicans, meanwhile, say the spending cuts in the budget are too steep.

"I've got concerns," Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., told the Washington Examiner.

No Democrats back the plan, in part because it cuts domestic spending and spends more on defense. The GOP plan would fund the domestic discretionary budget at $511 billion and the defense budget at $621.5 billion.

Meadows noted that the House has begun the process of passing 2018 spending bills, moving forward without waiting for a budget resolution to pass. In that way, the budget plan doesn't matter much to Republicans as a guide for upcoming spending bills.

"We are already appropriating, so it doesn't matter," Meadows said.

But the budget does matter to Republicans because it will set up a path for tax reform legislation that can be more easily passed in the Senate under the so-called reconciliation process. For that reason, Meadows believes Republicans should drop plans for a budget until they develop a tax reform plan and then try to pass the budget.

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Republican budget at risk in the House - Washington Examiner

Kansas City Star

Republican rift over Medicaid, familiar to Kansans, now stymies Obamacare repeal Kansas City Star When Vice President Mike Pence complained recently that the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion had put able-bodied adults ahead of people with disabilities, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a fellow Republican, quickly jumped in to dispute that and ... and more »

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Republican rift over Medicaid, familiar to Kansans, now stymies Obamacare repeal - Kansas City Star

Has there ever been a time when the Congressional Budget Office played a more consequential role than it is playing right now? Somewhat surprisingly for an office full of eggheads and number crunchers, it has become a nexus of controversy and contention, itslatest assessments eagerly awaited and assumed to have a dramatic impact on every debate it touches.

Today, the CBO released its latest score of the most recent version of the Republican effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, and once again, it shows the effects of the bill to be horrific.The bill would cut Medicaid by $756 billion and result in 22 million fewer Americans with health coverage by 2026, with 15 million of those coverage losses happening in the first year. In other words, its another score that offers a vivid picture of the damage that Republican plans would do.

Which is why Republicans have launched a full-scale assault on the CBO, trying to discredit it so that no one will listen when the CBO explains what consequences Republican plans would actually have.

It isnt all that surprising that Republicans would try to do that the creation of alternate realities they can shape has often been a core part of their political project. What matters is that it has failed. The reasons why can actually give us some hope that our politics retains some tether connecting it to reality.

But first, thats not the only CBO-related news. A group called the Protect Democracy Project filed a lawsuit today against the Office of Management and Budget, seeking a court order requiring OMB to immediately turn over any communications regarding plans it might have to attack and discredit the CBO, including emails coming from Newt Gingrich, who has been publicly advocating that the CBO be abolished. The basic idea of the lawsuit seems to be that the administration is planning to destroy the CBO, and the public deserves to know what theyre up to.

But this isnt just about health care theres a longer game being played. Yes, the administration is stricken by what the CBO has said about the various iterations of Republicans health-care plan. But it isalso almost certainly worried about whats to come on issues such as infrastructure and especially tax reform. Cutting taxes is the goal nearest and dearest to Republican hearts, and theres a good chance that when Republicans come up with a bill, the CBO will say that its going to explode the deficit. Under current rules, that will restrict what Republicans can do if they want to pass it through reconciliation with only 50 votes in the Senate.

The only way to get around that would be to change Senate rules so the CBO was no longer the arbiter of whether a bill does or doesnt increase the deficit. That would be a radical step, and I dont know if Senate Republicans are even contemplating it. But if they were, a campaign to discredit the CBO would have to be the first part of the plan.

So the stakes are high. And in the health-care debate, the CBOs judgments have been absolutely crushing for Republicans. Its score of the first House bill showed that it would lead to 24 million Americans without health coverage, an assessment that was widely reported on the news. Democrats repeated the 24 million number a zillion times, and polls showed the bills popularity somewhere between that of Martin Shkreli and canker sores. When Paul Ryan revised the bill, he pushed it through to a vote before CBO could get a chance to score it, obviously fearing what the score would reveal (the eventual score of that version showed 23 million losing coverage). The scores of Senate versions have not been much better, and as a result any Republican who tries to defend the effort inevitably gets the CBO figures thrown at them.

All of which is why Republicans are trying so hard to discredit the CBO. Its almost like its not a fair analysis, saidWhite House budget director Mick Mulvaney, complaining that the office is using methodologies designed by Democrats. Never mind that the current director of the CBO, Keith Hall, is a Republican economist and veteran of the George W. Bush administration who was picked for the job in 2015 by the Republican leadership in Congress. At some point, youve got to ask yourself, has the day of the CBO come and gone? Mulvaney said in May. The White House even made a video attacking the CBO (the video misspelled inaccurately not once but twice).

Both parties have at times complained about one CBO score or another when those scores didnt turn out the way they would have liked. But the critical point about this Republican effort is that it isnt succeeding. The news media continue to accept the CBOs judgments for what they are: not perfect by any means, but the best nonpartisan, objective measure we have to assess what important bills will do.

When Republicans go around bad-mouthing the CBO and accusing its workers of being nothing but liberal shills, they might be able to convince their own supporters that its true. But the more ambitious your goals, the more youll need to expand beyond your own base to gather support. So while Republicans might be able to get the Fox & Friends audience on board with their campaign to discredit the CBO, if theyre trying to remake the American health-care system or enact an enormous tax cut for the wealthy, that wont be enough. The attack on the CBO is so nakedly cynical and partisan that it just isnt going to have broad persuasive power. That means that those brutal numbers, whether its 24 million losing coverage or 32 million losing coverage or whatever the latest score reveals, will continue to be disseminated. Reality actually stands a chance.

Maybe the better answer for Republicans would be to write bills that wont have such a devastating effect on Americans, which would get them better CBO scores. Just an idea.

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The Republican attack on the CBO is failing. That should give us hope. - Washington Post