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The dispute within the Republican Party over health care widened further Friday as President Trump joined with two conservative senators in calling for an outright repeal of the Affordable Care Act if the party fails to agree on an alternative plan by the end of the July Fourth recess.

The reemergence of what has for much of the year been a fringe idea within the GOP revealed not only the partys philosophical divide over how to revise Obamacare, but also senators growing anxiety that they are headed home to see their constituents with little to show them.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) who has said he cannot yet support the current draft of the Senate bill, because of the effects its cuts in Medicaid funding would have on his state received a blistering reception at a Baton Rouge town hall Friday. As he sought to discuss flooding issues, an attendee interrupted to mention Medicaid, prompting others to chant, Health care! Health care!

If you wish to chant and stop others from being able to speak or be heard, that is not civil, Cassidy retorted.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) continued to work on forging a compromise that could garner sufficient support once his colleagues return to Washington on July 10. But Trumps suggestion that Republican senators should switch gears and immediately try to repeal the ACA if compromise is elusive could embolden conservatives, making it harder for McConnell to broker a deal.

An early-morning tweet was Trumps first public statement since taking office in favor of bringing down Obamacare with no replacement system in place a move that could send the U.S. health-care system into deep turmoil.

If Republican Senators are unable to pass what they are working on now, they should immediately REPEAL, and then REPLACE at a later date! Trump tweeted.

Health industry officials have warned that overturning the existing law, which has extended insurance to roughly 20million Americans and changed the rules under which insurance is offered across the country, would create chaos in a sector that accounts for one-sixth of the U.S. economy.

Robert Laszewski, president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, said repealing the ACA without a replacement would be a trauma for an insurance market that needs regulatory clarity to set premium rates.

There would be absolutely no certainty, whatsoever, about anything, Laszewski said.

A June 2015 Congressional Budget Office analysis projected that such an outright repeal would add $137billion to the federal deficit between 2016 and2025 and leave 24million non-elderly adults without health coverage between 2021 and 2025.

Two GOP senators who espouse this approach, Rand Paul (Ky.) and Ben Sasse (Neb.), welcomed Trumps suggestion. But some of the high-ranking Republicans who have been working on the legislation rejected it as impractical, noting that it might force them to fashion a substitute with Democrats.

(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

An even larger group of Senate Republicans suggested Friday that McConnell should scale back or cancel the chambers month-long August recess, given the lack of progress they have made on not just health care but a tax-code overhaul, spending bills, the debt ceiling and a budget resolution.

Senate Republicans David Perdue (Ga.), Steve Daines (Mont.), Joni Ernst (Iowa), John Neely Kennedy (La.), James Lankford (Okla.), Mike Lee (Utah), Mike Rounds (S.D.), Luther Strange (Ala.), Dan Sullivan (Alaska) and Thom Tillis (N.C.) sent McConnell a letter Friday asking him to shorten or cancel the August recess so they can get more done.

Delivering meaningful results was never assumed to be easy, but the millions of Americans who placed their confidence in our leadership expect our full and best effort, the 10 senators wrote.

Republicans are steeling themselves for attacks on their health-care negotiations over the July Fourth recess, with progressive activists planning to pressure any members of Congress they see at public events. Most GOP senators were keeping their plans close to their vests, though a handful, including Cassidy, Ted Cruz (Tex.), Susan Collins (Maine), Jerry Moran (Kan.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) have announced town halls or parade visits.

Collins, a vocal critic of the current Senate draft, had publicized just one scheduled appearance in the 1,300-person town of Eastport, Maine, near the Canadian border.

At Cassidys town hall at the Living Faith Christian Center in Baton Rouge, he tried to make the case for transitioning Medicaid recipients into private insurance. But constituents interrupted him repeatedly, prompting him to chastise them for being rude.

Ill tell you whats rude kicking 22million people off of health care in this country, said a man in the front row after the senator recognized him to speak.

The audience erupted into cheers.

Reminding Cassidy, a medical doctor, of his stint treating patients at a hospital for the uninsured, the man continued: You worked at Earl K. Long for many years. You know what people are like at their lowest.

Senate Democrats are staging events aimed at highlighting how the Senates draft bill could hurt health-care delivery in their home states. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) is visiting at least two rural hospitals over the break to underscore the impact of proposed funding cuts.

McConnell is trying to tweak his original proposal, which would make deep cuts in Medicaid while providing tax cuts to companies and wealthy Americans. The changes are part of an effort to bring on a handful of conservative and centrist senators who have questioned parts of the bill.

[GOP health-care talks center on stark question: Help vulnerable Americans or help the rich?]

While it is unclear what specifically prompted Trumps tweet, an aide to Sasse said that the senator had discussed the idea of a straight repeal privately with White House officials in recent days. On Friday, Sasse released a letter to the president suggesting that if an agreement is not reached by the day that members return from their week-long recess, the president should call on Congress to repeal the ACA and work through August to craft a replacement by Labor Day.

Paul, who retweeted Trump on Friday morning, later fired off a second tweet saying he had spoken to Trump and Senate GOP leadership about this and agree. Lets keep our word to repeal then work on replacing right away.

And Americans for Prosperitys chief government-affairs officer, Brent Gardner, whose conservative group is funded by Charles and David Koch, said the approach has real merit.

Deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump did not see July 10 as a deadline to pass legislation. She added: Were still fully committed to pushing through with the Senate, at this point, but were, you know, looking at every possible option of repealing and replacing Obamacare. We are focused on doing that.

Asked for the majority leaders response to Trumps Friday tweet, a McConnell spokeswoman said she did not have any new announcements.

Senate Republicans, along with their House counterparts, have repeatedly voted to abolish Obamacare without putting anything in its place, including as recently as 2015. In that Senate vote, only two Republicans dissented: Collins and Mark Kirk (Ill.), who lost his reelection bid last year.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) dismissed Trumps suggestion that Congress could simply repeal parts of the ACA then go back and replace them later.

That doesnt achieve what President Trump set out to do, he said during an episode of C-SPANs Newsmakers set to air Sunday. I really think the Senates approach certainly in the House of not simply repealing but starting to put into place the elements that can make health care affordable ... that should continue to be our goal.

If Republicans use special budget procedures known as reconciliation to skirt a Democratic filibuster in the Senate to repeal the ACA, they could not immediately use the same procedures to replace it meaning they would have to negotiate with Democrats.

Democrats, no doubt, would obstruct any fair opportunity to replace the Affordable Care Act in the future, Brady said. So the very best opportunity to begin this good, thoughtful transition to affordable care is right now in reconciliation.

But the calls for repeal reflect the anger that Trump and many conservatives feel about the measure McConnell crafted behind closed doors, which would cut $772billion over 10 years from Medicaid, the public insurance program that covers nearly 70million Americans, while providing $541billion in tax cuts.

Chip Roy, who directs the Texas Public Policy Foundations Center for the Tenth Amendment Action and once worked as an aide to Cruz, said he believed that Trumps tweet Friday was indicative of his frustration with whats going on on Capitol Hill.

Senate leaders are rewriting their bill to provide $45billion to combat opioid addiction and provide more financial assistance to low- and moderate-income Americans. They hope to win over conservatives by eliminating many of the ACAs insurance mandates and allowing higher tax deductions through expanded health savings accounts.

But they have not settled on how they would finance all these changes, since conservatives oppose the centrists push to preserve one of the bills current taxes as a way of funneling more money to those who cannot afford health coverage on their own.

McConnell had hoped to get his proposed revisions to the bill to the CBO by the end of the week. By late Friday, the bulk of the anticipated changes resulting from the weeks negotiations had been sent to the office for review, two Republicans with knowledge of the process confirmed.

On Friday, Brady joined the chorus of conservatives who object to maintaining a 3.2percent tax on investment income for high earners as a way of providing more money to low-income Americans in the health bill. The current draft repeals or delays all the taxes imposed by the ACA.

Keeping the tax, Brady said, would be a tough red flag if the bill comes back to the House.

Given the impasse, the bill continues to come under attack from the GOPs right and center.

On a Friday conference call with reporters, officials with several conservative advocacy groups said it does not repeal the ACA forcefully enough.

We believe that real repeal means full repeal, said Andy Roth, vice president for government affairs at the Club for Growth. Root and branch doesnt mean trimming the hedges, as is currently the case.

Ashley Cusick in Baton Rouge and Mike DeBonis, David Weigel and Ed OKeefe in Washington contributed to this report.

Read more at PowerPost

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Republicans grow increasingly anxious about heading home without a health plan - Washington Post

A slew of new national surveys completed during the past week shed light on how voters are reacting to Republicans bills to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The surveys show opposition continues to outpace support by a wide margin, with tepid support among Republicans and overwhelming opposition among Democrats.

Comparing polls, there is a range in how much opposition outweighs support. Among recent national live-interviewer polls, the Republicans health proposal fares best in a Fox News poll conducted June 25 to 27 that showed 27 percent of registered voters favored and 54 percent opposed the Senate Republican bill released last Thursday, a 2-to-1 margin of opposition. By contrast, a Suffolk University-USA Todaypoll starting one day earlier found a nearly 4-to-1 margin of opposition (45 percent opposed while 12 percent supported). The margin was similar in a Quinnipiac University poll begun the day Republican senators released their draft bill, with 58 percent who disapproved and 16 percent who approved. A fourth survey released this week by NPR-PBS NewsHour-Marist found a 3-to-1 margin of opposition, with 55 percent who disapproved and 17 percent who approved.

Almost all the polls on the issue had high percentages of people saying they had no opinion, probably as a result of the complicated and changing nature of legislation as well as whether the polling firm explicitly offered respondents a no opinion option. For instance, the Suffolk-USA Today survey asked whether respondents support or oppose the GOP plan, or don't you know enough to have an opinion? and found 43 percent of registered voters took that option.

There are sharp partisan differences in opinion on the GOP health-care proposals, as there is with the Affordable Care Act, but also a clear imbalance, with Democrats far more united in opposition than Republicans are in support. Across seven polls conducted since mid-month, Democratic opposition varied from 70 percent opposed in the Suffolk-USA Today poll to 84 percent disapproving in the CBS poll and Quinnipiac polls. By contrast, Republicans support for the law is lowest at 26 percent in the Suffolk-USA Today poll and highest at 63 percent in the CBS poll, a massive range indicating ambivalence toward their partys top legislative initiative.

Polls asking about the House and Senate bills dont appear to show dramatically different results, a sign that as debate over the law has continued, Republicans repeal and replace efforts do not appear to be gaining or losing popularity.

The polls also asked different groups of people Fox, Suffolk-USA Today and Quinnipiac polls all interviewed registered voters while the other polls pulled from American adults overall.

Beyond that, each of the seven polls worded their questions on the Republican health-care plan somewhat differently. Fox News asked whether voters favored or opposed the Senate health-care plan that would replace the Affordable Care Act, while NPR-PBS NewsHour-Marist asked whether people approved or disapproved of the Republican health-care plan. And NBC News-Wall Street Journal asked whether Americans thought the House bill was a good idea or bad idea.

Heres the full wording for each of the seven surveys:

Fox News: As you may know, the Senate recently released its version of a health care plan that would replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Do you favor or oppose this legislation?

Suffolk-USA Today: Senate Republicans have unveiled their proposed healthcare plan to replace Obamacare. Do you support or oppose the GOP plan? Or dont you know enough to have an opinion?

Quinnipiac University: There is a Republican health care plan to replace Obamacare. Do you approve or disapprove of this Republican health care plan?

NPR-PBS NewsHour-Marist: From what you have read or heard, do you approve or disapprove of the health care plan Senate Republicans have proposed?

NBC News-Wall Street Journal: The health care bill passed by the House is a good idea or a bad idea?

CBS News: As you may know, Republicans in Congress passed a bill in the House of Representatives to repeal and replace the 2010 health care law. From what you have heard or read, do you approve or disapprove this plan?

Kaiser Family Foundation: As you may know, Congress is currently discussing a health-care plan that would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Given what you know about this proposed new health-care plan, do you have a generally (favorable) or generally (unfavorable) opinion of it?

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Fresh polls find Republicans' health-care proposal is still a clunker ... - Washington Post

Churches should have the First Amendment right to endorse political candidates and still keep their tax-free status, say House Republicans. Photo by REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst.

WASHINGTON Churches should have the First Amendment right to endorse political candidates and still keep their tax-free status, say House Republicans, who quietly tucked a provision into a sweeping spending bill that would deny the IRS money to enforce the 63-year-old law prohibiting such outright politicking from the pulpit.

Republicans repeatedly have failed to scrap the law preventing churches and other non-profits from backing candidates, so now they are trying to starve it. With little fanfare, a House Appropriations subcommittee added the IRS measure to a bill to fund the Treasury Department, Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies.

The subcommittee passed the bill Thursday.

Republicans say the law is enforced unevenly, leaving religious leaders uncertain about what they are allowed to say and do.

I believe that churches have a right of free speech and an opportunity to talk about positions and issues that are relevant to their faith, said Rep. Jim Renacci, R-Ohio.

Some Democrats say the measure comes too close to mixing church and state. They say religious leaders already have First Amendment rights, just like anyone else. But if they want to get political, they dont have a constitutional right not to pay taxes.

READ MORE: Trump vows to repeal political limits on churches

Some also worry that the measure could upend the system of campaign financing by allowing churches to use their tax-free status to funnel money to political candidates.

Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., recalled a speech that former President John F. Kennedy gave to religious leaders when he was running for president.

He said the pope wouldnt tell him what to do, and the people in that audience shouldnt be telling people on Sunday morning who to vote for, Neal said. I dont think churches should be endorsing.

Many nonprofit groups want to avoid politics. In April, 4,500 nonprofit groups signed onto a letter to congressional leaders asking them to preserve the law.

The law prohibits tax-exempt charitable organizations such as churches from participating directly or indirectly in any political campaign to support or oppose a candidate. If the IRS determines that a group has violated the law, it can revoke its tax-exempt status.

The law doesnt stop religious groups from weighing in on public policy or organizing in ways that may benefit one side in a campaign.

The bill specifically forbids the IRS from spending money to enforce the law against a church, or a convention or association of churches, unless the IRS commissioner signs off on it and notifies Congress.

READ MORE: Wisconsin-based atheist group sues Trump over church order

The bill doesnt mention other types of non-profit groups, or even synagogues or mosques, said Nick Little of the Center for Inquiry, which promotes secularism.

All they care about is the Christian groups, and in particular, it will end up as the extreme religious right Christian groups, Little said. If this goes through, this would add just another way in which unregulated dark money could be used.

Religious leaders have been weighing in on political issues for generations, whether its the debate over abortion or advocating for the poor. But periodically, the IRS has stepped in when religious leaders explicitly endorse or oppose candidates.

Religious leaders have been weighing in on political issues for generations, whether its the debate over abortion or advocating for the poor. But periodically, the IRS has stepped in when religious leaders explicitly endorse or oppose candidates.

The law is called the Johnson Amendment after former President Lyndon Johnson, who introduced it in 1954 when he was a Democratic senator from Texas. Johnson was upset because a few nonprofit groups attacked him as a communist in a Senate campaign.

The law was signed by a Republican president Dwight Eisenhower but Republicans have been attacking it in recent years.

House Republicans have pledged to repeal the law as part of a tax overhaul. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in May discouraging the IRS from enforcing the law.

Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, says the law has been enforced unevenly.

Some churches, including my own, have been very concerned about appearing political in any way shape or form, Tiberi said. Churches I went to that were primarily in Democrat areas, that I would go to because I had a Democrat district, the local candidates on the Sunday mornings before the election would be introduced, would speak from the pulpit about the campaign and why the congregation should vote for them.

The full Appropriations Committee will consider the measure after the July 4th congressional recess.

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Republicans push bill to let churches endorse political candidates - PBS NewsHour

Jun. 30, 2017 at 5:59 AM

Welcome to TrumpBeat, FiveThirtyEights weekly feature on the latest policy developments in Washington and beyond. Want to get TrumpBeat in your inbox each week? Sign up for our newsletter. Comments, criticism or suggestions for future columns? Email us or drop a note in the comments.

As Senate Republicans look for a way to save their struggling health care bill, some of them are floating a once-unthinkable possibility: keeping some of the taxes imposed by the Affordable Care Act. It may not happen, but that its even on the table helps illustrate why broader tax reform is going to be so tricky for the GOP.

Democrats paid for their big expansion of the health care system via a series of new taxes on medical devices, health insurers and, especially, wealthy people. When Republicans came to power this year, they pledged to abolish most of those taxes as part of their plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. Both the bill that was passed by the House and the one that is now being considered by the Senate would cut taxes by billions of dollars.

But getting rid of the Obamacare taxes poses two big problems for Republicans. The first is political: The cuts would go overwhelmingly to the richest Americans. The Tax Policy Center, a think tank that leans to the left but whose analyses are generally respected by both sides, estimates that nearly 45 percent of the Senate bills tax cuts would go to the top 1 percent of households by earnings. One tax that the GOP wants to repeal, the net investment income tax, is even more skewed: 90 percent of its revenue comes from the top 1 percent, and 62 percent from the top 0.1 percent. That has made it easy for Democrats (including former President Barack Obama himself) to tar the Republican plan as a tax cut for the rich.

The tax cuts also create a math problem for Republicans: The more they give up in tax revenue, the more they have to cut spending on health care programs. That could make it harder to appease moderate Republicans who want more money to fight the opioid epidemic, smaller cuts to Medicaid and more generous subsidies for low-income Americans to buy insurance.

Now some Republican senators are suggesting that they keep at least the investment tax, which is expected to generate $172 billion in revenue over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Its not an acceptable proposition to have a bill that increases the burden on lower-income citizens and lessens the burden on wealthy citizens, Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee told reporters. Two other GOP senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Mike Rounds of South Dakota, have expressed similar concerns.

Some Senate conservatives are likely to oppose any effort to keep the investment tax, and, as with everything in health care right now, its unclear how things will shake out in the end. But whatever happens, the debate provides a preview of the coming fight over tax reform, which Republicans have vowed to tackle once the health care process wraps up. President Trump hasnt yet released a detailed tax plan, but the outline he has provided suggests that the plan will, like the health care tax cuts so far, disproportionately benefit the rich and lead to big reductions in government revenue (making it harder to pay for spending on infrastructure, the military and Trumps border wall, among other priorities).

The parallels arent perfect. Its unlikely that any GOP tax reform proposal will favor the rich quite to the degree that repealing the Obamacare taxes would. And a stand-alone tax bill wont have the same one-to-one tradeoff of revenue and spending as the health care overhaul. But broad tax reform is also more complicated than simply repealing the Obamacare taxes. There are dueling interests and competing priorities, even among Republicans, that could prove difficult to resolve. If Republicans are having trouble repealing taxes that they all agree they want to get rid of, its a safe bet that real tax reform isnt going to be any easier.

Beyond the question of tax cuts, much of the discussion of the Senate health care bill has focused on insurance coverage, in particular the 22 million additional people that the CBO estimates would go without health insurance under the plan. What has been less talked about is the impact the bill would have on the broader health system, particularly in rural areas.

Research suggests that the Republican approaches proposed in the House and Senate would have a large and negative impact on rural hospitals. An analysis from the Chartis Center for Rural Health released this week estimates that in states that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare, hospitals would lose more than $470,000 a year in revenue. In states that didnt expand, the amount would be less, around $240,000. Those losses would largely be due to cuts to Medicaid included in the proposed Senate health care the bill, cuts that would total $772 billion. The bill includes additional payments to some rural hospitals, but its not nearly enough to offset the expected losses in insurance coverage, Chartis estimates. Those cuts would likely cause 140-150 more rural hospitals around the country to operate at a loss. In all, 48 percent of rural hospitals could end up in the red, compared to 41 percent today.

Financial struggles have already led to nearly 80 hospital closings since 2010, and these closings can be a major hit to rural communities. Earlier this week we profiled Greene County, Alabama, home to one of the countrys struggling rural hospitals. With about 200 employees, the county health system is essentially tied with a box manufacturer as the largest employer in the county. You close the hospital here and now youre talking about jobs, and youre never gonna get an industry because there wont be a hospital in a 30-mile radius, hospital CEO Elmore Patterson III said, adding that the closure would also mean the area would lose professionals who are a key part of the areas tax base. Greene County isnt an outlier; in many rural counties, the local hospital is among the biggest employers in the area.

The strain on hospitals also puts a strain on rural communities, which are already disproportionately burdened when it comes to health care. People in rural areas tend to be older and are more likely to be veterans, two high-needs groups when it comes to health care (and also two groups that supported Trump for president). Rural areas also experience higher rates of childhood poverty and higher rates of premature death. The rushed Senate process has made it hard to see beyond the basics of the bill, but its impact would be felt throughout the health system.

The Supreme Court this week reinstated a limited version of Trumps ban on travel from six predominantly Muslims countries: Libya, Sudan, Syria, Iran, Yemen and Somalia. The revived ban took effect on Thursday, nearly six months after Trumps initial executive order. The court ruled that travelers can be barred entry if they dont have a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the country, but didnt specify what qualified as bona fide relationship or who would be affected. According to guidelines issued by the State Department before the order became effective, a bona fide relationship with parents, children and in-laws in the U.S. is enough to gain entry, but not grandparents or cousins. (Late on Thursday, the State Department revised its guidelines to include fiancs.)

But even with the guidelines, which have already drawn a legal challenge, there remains significant uncertainty about how many people will be affected by the ban. Data on travel from past years can provide some guidance. In fiscal year 2016, the State Department issued over 81,000 total visas to people traveling from the six affected countries. Of those, more than 28,000 were immigrant visas, issued to people looking to move to the U.S. permanently. Most of those people wouldnt have been affected by the Supreme Courts version of the ban, according to the State Department about 80 percent of them having a family or employment connection. But more than 5,000 of them were so-called diversity visas, which are given to people from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the U.S. and are issued through a lottery program. Some of those applicants would likely now be blocked by the travel ban.

The ban will likely have a much bigger impact on non-immigrants, people looking to travel to the U.S. temporarily. In fiscal year 2016, the State Department issued more than 53,000 non-immigrant visas for travelers from the six countries. Some of them were issued to students, travelers coming in through work exchange or government officials who arent likely to be affected by the order. But around three-quarters of them were visas for tourism, business or medical purposes. Applicants for those visas would only be allowed in if they could show they are visiting a close family member or have some other bona fide relationship.

These rules are only temporary. In October, the Supreme Court will review challenges to the travel ban, which could eventually pave the way for rules that are stricter (if the court upholds Trumps ban) or more lenient (if the justices rule large parts of the ban unconstitutional). But in the meantime, immigration lawyers are bracing legal battles over the relationship guidelines.

The Environmental Protection Agency is the most politically polarizing agency in the U.S. government. And for its mostly conservative discontents, the EPA has become synonymous with capital-B Big Government. But despite that reputation, state control is at the heart of how the EPA was designed. The federal agency sets standards to meet the congressional mandates in legislation, such as the Clean Water Act, but enforcement, monitoring and other practical details are largely left up to the states. As of February 2016, 96 percent of the powers that could be in the hands of the states were. A report published in June by the Environmental Council of the States, a nonpartisan association of state environmental agencies, described states as the primary implementers of environmental statutes.

But you wouldnt know that from the speeches of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who has focused heavily on a need to return control to the states rhetoric that popped up again this week in a proposal to rescind an Obama-era regulatory rule. Together with the Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA is proposing to repeal the Waters of the United States, a 2015 rule meant to broaden the scope of the Clean Water Act by stretching it beyond navigable waterways to the streams, wetlands and seasonal creeks that feed them. The rule was never implemented because of legal challenges. Now, like the Clean Power Plan before it, it likely never will be.

Rhetoric about correcting federal overreach is a major part of the justification for current EPA efforts to cut budgets and eliminate regulations. But how do we make sense of a policy argument that seems contradictory to the power structure as it exists on paper? According to Alexandra Dunn, executive director of the Environmental Council of the States, the answer is tied to a fundamental disagreement about quality control.

The federal EPA retains veto authority over most of what states do in order to make sure that enforcement is carried out the same way everywhere. And while EPA officials defer to the states in general, the agency does step in if theres a documented history of failure to make progress. The trouble, Dunn said, is that the states and the EPA dont interpret that language the same way. States tend to think the EPA should step in only rarely; the feds have tended to be more aggressive. Dunn compared the states to people on an exercise regimen who arent losing weight. With all the sweat, they might feel like theyre working hard. But their trainer (the EPA) might look at the scale and feel like they arent. Its in the eye of the beholder, she said. But the clash strains the limits of trust and, she believes, pushes some states to reject attempts to expand the scope of what they (and the EPA) would have to enforce. Thats why despite high favorability ratings overall and general American support for its goals the EPA is facing a major shift in priorities and funding. Pruitt has the perspective of the guy on the treadmill, not the one with the clipboard.

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Why Republicans Might Be Forced To Oppose Tax Cuts - FiveThirtyEight

A group of 10 Senate Republicans are calling on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to cancel their scheduled August recess from Washington in order to catch up on their legislative agenda on which they're falling behind.

The relatively small faction among the 52 Senate Republicans want McConnell "to cancel the Senate's scheduled August state work period if meaningful progress has not been made on the following five priorities: fixing health care, funding the government, dealing with the debt ceiling, passing the budget resolution and improving our tax code," they wrote in a letter to the Kentucky Republican Friday.

There are only 33 potential working days left until the end of the fiscal year, which is Sept. 30, the letter said.

"This does not appear to give us enough time to adequately address the issues that demand immediate attention. Therefore, we respectfully request that you consider truncating, if not completely foregoing, the scheduled August state work period, allowing us more time to complete our work," they continued.

The letter was signed by Sens. David Perdue, R-Georgia, Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, Mike Lee, R-Utah, Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, Luther Strange, R-Alabama, Dan Sullivan, R-Arkansas, Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina and Steve Daines, R-Montana.

Lawmakers are on recess next week for July 4 and the Senate is scheduled to leave Washington again by July 28 and not return to Capitol Hill until Sept. 5.

The conservative Freedom Caucus in the House called on GOP leaders earlier this month to cancel recess in order to work on tax reform and other priorities.

Neither McConnell nor Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, has suggested lawmakers' month-long recess could be canceled this year. In recent years, recess hasn't been cut short despite the various government funding and debt ceiling deadlines Congress has faced. Last summer, House Democrats called on their Republican colleagues to cancel their seven-week recess to tackle the Zika, opioid epidemic and deal with gun violence. It was never canceled.

In addition to the goal of repealing and replacing Obamacare and passing tax reform, Republicans face major deadlines to fund the government by Oct. 1 and avoid a shutdown, and to lift the debt ceiling and avoid a default on the nation's debt. The Congressional Budget Office estimates Congress will have to deal with the debt limit by early-to-mid October.

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Cancel August recess for Congress, group of Senate Republicans say - CBS News