>> a live look at the u.s. capitol. that was a mid day news conference with the house leaders led by the speaker of the house, paul ryan. as lawmakers passing largely along a party line vote, though 12 republicans siding with the democrats in opposing the bill, but enough republicans supporting this legislation that will now go to the president's desk late they are week. but there has been a new development. this is from cq rl call. the house needs to revote on the tax overhaul. we'll explain what that means coming up. but first, we want to open our phone lines for republicans, 202-748-8921. for democrats, 202-748-8920. we also have a line for independents, 202-748-8922. your reaction to what happened on the house floor earlier today. the senate now taking up the measure and a vote is still scheduled for later tonight or possibly early in the morning, 10 hours of debate in the

senate. if all of the time is used. again, for republicans, 202-748-8921. for democrats, 202-74 -892, and for independents, 202-748-8922. let me read you the reporting of brian fowler, the house to vote again on a tax overhaul after a senate glitch and here are the details. the house is expected to have to vote again tomorrow on the republicans' sweeping tax legislation after a number of provisions were ruled out of order in the senate. however, writes politico, it is not likely to stop the momentum for long with the legislation still on track to be delivered to president trump this week. the senate is expected to vote on the bill tuesday night, this evening, after striking these provisions known as the byrd rule, by the way, which relates to expanding the tax advantage college savings account and taxing college endowments. politico writes the stumble is an embarrassment for the republicans who hours before were celebrating on the house floor and getting cue dotes from

president trump for passing the landmark bill and sending it to the senate. it also plays into the hands of democrat who was been saying the speed with which republicans are pushing the plan is a recipe for chaos. let's get to your phone calls on all of this. kareem is joining us from davenport, iowa, democrats line, your reaction. caller: i called both of my senators today. told them they're fooling no one. the tax bill is a tax scam for the majority of americans. host: why do you say that? caller: why do i say that? because it's -- i've heard it over and over again. 3% of the -- what's happening in this tax bill is all going to the wealthy. it's about the estate tax, it's about gutting corporation taxes, and giving a tax wind fall to the wealthiest people in the country, not to mention all of those extra things they put in just to get different senators'

votes. they put the thing in for corker, for real estate. and they put the thing in for mruczkowski about drilling up in the arctic national wildlife represh -- preserve. yeah. it's an abomination. that's what it is. host: thanks for the call. jim, boca raton, florida, republican line. your thoughts on what's been happening today, tonight, and this week on the tax bill. caller: well, it's been a couple of decades since we reformed our code and even the democrats and the socialists know that we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. donald trump got elected, one of the thick he is got elected on was bringing jobs back to america. these folks who are criticizing the bill so vociferously don't have a clue about how economics works. once this bill gets passed, we will see trillions of dollars

coming back to the country. we'll see economic growth like we did under ronald reagan and john kennedy when we cut taxes and the third point, or final point, would be anyone that's taken basic economics in college or even high school, but in college, will know that corporations do not pay taxes. they pass taxes on to consumer. so this is a consumer relief package as well. those who are agonizing over this should be very happy. that we are finally going to reduce the taxes on our corporations and on individuals in this country and we will see a subsequent boom in our economy. thank you very much. host: jim from boca raton. according to the bill, the corporate tax rate will be cut from 35% down to 21%. it was at 20% but increased as part of negotiations among house and senate republicans.

trying to figure out a way to pay for the bill. it's posted on our website at c-span.org. the senate continues its debate and we're live on c-span2 right now, the house recessed for the evening, back tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. eastern for what many are calling a revote a parliamentary procedure where some of the provisions have been taken out of the senate bill in order to pass senate rules and then because of those changes it has to go back to the house for another vote. it is expected to pass, just delaying it by perhaps a couple of hours before it gets to the president's desk. you can see senator tess tore live on the senate floor at this hour. anita is joining us from florida, democrats line. good evening. caller: good evening. i'd like to share with you that i am first of all very upset that we're pushing this through in such a way that we don't give people a chance to really study

and know what it's about. i resent the young man who just got through saying that if we were claiming something was wrong with it it's because we didn't understand economics. i've heard multiple economic people that all have a different view. nobody knows how this is going to turn out. and they won't know for some time. i also think it's very unhealthy for both sides, republicans to bribe people with, we'll give you some money back, hepping that it's going to make them happy, and democrats, we'll help you stay dependent on the government. we need people that will grow, take care of themselves, as much as possible, but us be there to help them when they need help. host: anita, thanks for the call. vice president mike pence delayed his trip to the middle

east, he'll be departing in mid january so he's on hand in the unlikely event that they need him, he is available. senator john mccain is back in arizona as he continues to deal with cancer treatment. senator thad cochran is back on the floor of the senate. let's go to florida, independent line, mark, what do you think? caller: absolutely following it, i'm a true independent since 1976. presidential voting has been pretty much half-and-half. voted once for president obama, sec time i did not, i voted for trump this election, and with regard to the tax bill i would say a stick of dynamite. i believe the tax bill, taxes needed to be lowered, for not only corporate america but most americans. that's our money. and this -- the reason i call it a stick of dynamite is the

economy at this point is humming, 3%, gross national product up the last two quarters. feds project 4g% this year. we have not seen that kind of growth for the last, probably 10 years. it was absent in the obama administration. and the reason i call it a stick of dynamite, if this helps spur the economy even higher than it's going now, this will explode on the democrats in the 2018 election. due to the fact that they state on -- sat on their hands and did nothing but gripe, never getting involved with the republicans to try to get together on a joint bill and like i said if the conomy spurs forward to g.n.p. of 4% or 5%, they'll be in serious damage control come 2018, the democrats. conversely, same with the republicans. if it goes backwards and contributes to the deficit

significantly then the same could happen to them in 2018. let's wait and see. host: mark, thank you for the call. aaron is joining us live on the phone, he's been following this for politico , he covers taxes. thanks for bling with us. guest: sure, happy to be here. host: first explain what happened after the house vote today and what we can expect tonight and tomorrow. guest: well, i'll answer your second question first. what you can expect is the same outcome, the house and the senate republicans will pass this tax package but they had a hiccup here. a stumble, if you will. kind of a technical thing. democrats weren't able to, because of the technique or rules that republicans are passing this bill on, reconciliation, there's some pretty strict budget rules they have to abide by and if

democrats challenge any provisions that they believe don't meet those budget rules, and they are ruled out of order, that does kind of reset the process. and so certain provisions are going to have to be stripped out because two of them, at least two of them, were found to be in violation of these budget rules. and they'll have to revote. the senate will vote it tonight as scheduled. they just will vote on a plan that doesn't have these two provisions that are in question and that'll send it back to the house tomorrow for passage again but this time without the two provisions in question. host: how big a deal is that in terms of these provisions? guest: they're not central to the overall package in terms of what the bill is trying to do. backs of the bill think it will do. i would say -- well let me describe them for you.

they're both education related. one is related to tax advantage savings plan, known as 529 ceyings plans, under section 529. in this case it would allow people who do homeschooling to use tax advantaged savings for homeschool purposes, i guess, you know, supplies and things of that nature. that was found to have no budgetary impact and so that's being taken out of the package. and the other provision that's being stripped out is related to taxing college endowments. the overall bill includes an cise tax proposal on certain endowments above a certain size, ertain amount of money and there was an exemption for schools with certain number of

schools. i think it was 500, that they would be allowed to not face this tax. that's also being removed. so those two things, the house will have to vote again, the house passed the bill this afternoon, early afternoon, 227-203. i don't think that you'd expect a dramatic change. one thing to keep an eye on though is, you know, even though this didn't stop the bill, it's just a stumble here, it does offer ammunition for democrats in congress and anyone else who has been opposed to this. they've been saying for months now, the last couple of months, that this process has been so rushed that this is going to lead to mistakes an the bill, the law, the new law is going to have to get revisited and you know, certain fixes are going to be necessary. this to them is foreshadowing that that's going to happen down the road. host: we're talking to aaron

lorenzo, who has been following the details on this for politico. his work is available online at politico.com. a tweet from steve scalise, republican whip. we're cutting tax rates, americans will keep more of their hard-earned money. this will realy get into the weeds. maybe you can explain it as simply as possible. it's known as the byrd rule, named after the late senator robert c. byrd of west virginia. it has to go through what some refer to as the byrd bath. for those interested in themy knew shah of the parliamentary procedure in the senate what oes that mean? guest: let me see if i can do the byrd bath justice. what it means in this case is provisions in any bill that's going to get passed on what i refer to earlier, reconciliation, that means these provisions have to have some ort of budgetary impact.

a person who makes that decision, the senate parliamentarian, that person agreed with democrats who challenged these couple of provisions in saying that they're -- they don't have a budget impact. the parliamentarian agreed. that's why they're being stricken from the conference agreement. and that's why we're talking about this right now. but then that in short, the byrd bath refers to opponents of a bill bringing up a challenge because they believe that it goes against the byrd rule and one of the byrd rules is this budget impact. issue. host: senator byrd was legendary in his knowledge of senate rules and the parliamentary procedure. aaron lorenzo on a very busy evening, thank you very much for explaining what all this means. we, of course, will be following what's happening in the senate and your work at politico.com.

thanks for being with us. guest: thank you. host: we'll come back to more of your phone calls and reaction to the house vote today. the senate voting tonight, a revote in the house tomorrow. we'll have it for you tomorrow morning when the house convenes at 9:00 a.m. eastern time. we'll begin the day with "washington journal." back with more of your calls. but first as the process unfolded, here's senator ron wyden and senator bernie sanders, independent from vermont and ron wyden a democrat from oregon. provisions airdropped from lobbies into this legislation in the middle of the night. you and i were part of a so-called conference committee last week where we didn't even have the relevant bill in front of us. we're asking questions about

bills that really didn't exist. >> if i could ask my colleague from oregon a simple question. as ranking member of the finance committee, this is a bill that deals with trillions of dollars. impact ours entire economy. impacts every person in america. would you mind telling the american people just how many hearings there were to hear from economists, to hear from the business community, to hear from labor, to hear from senior advocates, how many public hearings were there to discuss this rather long and complicated bill? senator wyden: there was not one single hearing to discuss the specifics of the legislation before us today. the legislation before us today involves $10 trillion worth of changes in tax policy. and our colleagues on the other side trumpet this idea that there were 70 hearings and i

think what they're talking about is over the years, people would come in and talk about this idea or that. in general. correct. but there was not one single hearing with respect to the specifics of the bill and i'd like to turn, if i could, to this work that my colleague has played such an important role on, i'm happy to have partnered with him and that's the consequences of all this reckless haste and secretive process. in my view, really legislative malpractice when you and i have been working on, an we got a bill that is full of mistakes that are going to have unintended consequences, opening many new loopholes for the wealthy and crafty accountants and lawyers. now you and i have been working to try to weed out of this legislation, violations of what

is called the byrd rule which in english basically just means you can't stuff provisions into a bill that really don't deal with tax and spending. now, by my count, you and i have already pushed more than 20 byrd rule violations that had to be corrected and i just want to give people, before i ask my question, a little bit of the idea of the work you and i have been doing over the last few days. late friday night you and i were able to overturn provisions that would have turned church into political organizations.

specifically, there's the johnson amendment, named after lyndon johnson, that barred churches from endorsing partisan political activity and political candidates. and the way that the bill was written and why you and i sought to get it struck and were successful, it would have turned churches and sham charity into political machines where they could be conduits for billions and billions of dollars in dark money. senator sanders: in other words, as i understand what you are saying is that billionaire campaign contributors could then legally put money into churches who will then do the political work they otherwise would have been doing. senator wyden: absolutely and in effect what we would have and i think we need to tell america about this, because we won this round but you and i are back at this fight with our colleagues

again this would have been citizens united 2.0. this would be another version of the push to have unaccountable, dark money spilling into -- billions of dollars, poured into elections through churches and sham charities and turning to the question now of this evening, it looks to me like we now found several others, byrd rule violations, that would seem to me to be a further indication of rash and reckless legislating that does not serve the american people well. so i would wrap up by asking my colleagues from -- my colleague from vermont, and i want to tell him it's been a pleasure to work in partnership with him on this, are these byrd rule violations we've been going after, and that you're going to discuss again tonight, aren't these just a

textbook case of what happens when you legislate with reckless hate? senator sanders: absolutely. it's not only mistakes made, it's when you dent open the doors to the american people, economists, to mayors, to governors, to business people, to leaders in the labor movement, to see what do you want to see in tax reform? when you don't do that, when you conduct your business behind closed doors, not only do you end up with legislation that represents the needs of the billionaire class, but you also make a number of mistakes and in that regard, i would tell my friend that this afternoon, the senate parliamentarian advised that certain provisions of the republican tax legislation violate the byrd rule, including a provision allowing for the use of 529 savings accounts for homeschooling expenses, the short title of the tax cut and

jobs act and part of the criteria used to determine whether the endowments of private universitys are subject to the legislation's new excise tax. these provisions may be struck from the conference report absent 60 votes and with that, mr. president, i raise the following points of order. against the pending conference report. that subsection 11,000 a violates section 313-b-1-a of the congressional budget act of 1974, that subparagraph b of section 11,032 starting on page 5, line 17, and all through page 6 line 9, violates section 313-b-1-d of the congressional udget act of 1974 and that the

phrase, quote, tuition paying, end quote, as it appears on page 309, line 12 and page 309 lines 14 through 15, violates section 313-b-1-d of the congressional udget act of 1974. hip that's how it unfolded around 5:40 eastern time two senators, bernie sanders, independent of vermont and ron wyden, democrat of oregon, putting up a procedural hurdle for congressional republicans as they move forward on their tax bill. here are some tweets, this is from senator john tester, we're tracking both democrats an republicans on twitter. the senate is hours away from passing a bill that will add more than $1 trillion to the national debt, force cuts to medicare and cause health care costs to rise by 6%. and this from senator tammy baldwin, democrat from isconsin, calling it

#goptaxscam, giving powerful corporations permanent tax breaks. she says the top 1% will see 83% of the benefits, millions of middle class families will face tax hikes and future generations will get higher deficits and debt. the debate continues on the senate floor, vote expected later tonight, we want to hear from you. we have daisy on the line for independents. caller: good evening. i'm glad i waited to speak on the phone, i'm from haver, montana, we just heard from our great senator tester and i was very privileged to hear senator biden and senator sanders -- senator wyden and senator sanders speak for the person people. live on less than, let's see, $16,000 a year. i'm a poor operation enduring freedom veteran.

appreciate the democrats and others and independent, bernie sanders, speaking for me american people, for us poor people and i have great sympathy for the middle class, which i'm not part of, of course, the up jer -- upper middle class, middle-middle class, all of them. and i feel story for the citizens of the united states of merica because they're being bamboozled by donald trump and his gang of kangaroos. i don't like the corker kickback. and i don't like them trying to fool american citizens as if we're stupid. we're not stupid. they say things and i'm sure they laugh behind closed doors, saying we've got these americans fooled.

if i had all the money, a lot of money, i'd be in there fighting too and they talk about, welling democrats did not do anything. to try to fix the taxes. i remember when mitch mcconnell told president obama, we are not -- and this was when he was the minority leader, he told president obama, we are not going to pass anything to help you. so any tax reform was not going to be done during president obama's two terms. host: daisy, thanks for adding your voice. we move on to betty a republican caller from tennessee, house and senate take up this tax bill, what are your thoughts? caller: hi, first time caller here. host: glad to hear for you, thanks for phoning , in don't be a stranger. caller: i'll try not to.

i have a question about our tax dollars making up these slush funds. don't the politicians have to declare the moneys spent on their behalf on their income tax? if so, doesn't that make it a public record? of our tax dollars being spent? host: thanks for adding that to the table. sheryl from north carolina, independent line. good evening. caller: good evening. i just have -- this is my observation. in the 1980's, everything was humming along and then we had the junk bond crash. and then in the 2000's, after the dot-com bubble everything was humming along. and then we had the mortgage crash. and you know, i remember people were looking at their 401k's, you know, the thing that's supposed to replace the bare bones social security, but anyway, people were looking at

their 401k's in horror. as they saw them go to nothing. and so now we have a situation where these corporations are buying back their own stock. they're driving the price of stock up. and then of course there are people that have 401k's that are invested in the stock market and so on, so forth. they're probably looking very favorably at their balance right now. but it's just a matter of time. because the republicans always do this. and i've always -- i've scratched my head and gone, where did all the money go? ll, we can see the extreme inequality that has developed in this country in the last, i would say, since 1980. host: sheryl, thank you for the

call. lieu ann, republican line, from vermont. good evening. caller: good evening. yeah, i've been hearing all of the things that are basically that everyone has been saying and being from vermont, it's like, i have no representation that basically that for anything that ends up coming down. if i just would like to ask like we have had eight years of doubled it's like he the debt by $10 trillion and it's like we're trying to basically make things for the people thaffer out there working, this tax bill is like you know, the democrats have basically just said from the very beginning, we're not going to help, we're going to resist, we're going to basically not be there and then we have chuck schumer and congresswoman pelosi

who wouldn't even go to, you know, visit with the president and it's like, i just think that that's disgusting and it's like, and now they want to basically, you know they want to basically say it's a tax scam and it's not. and it's like, what was the obamacare deal when they had everything in their power and they basically put everything right through and they didn't want anybody else, didn't invite anybody, president obama did not invite anyone basically to, you know from the republicans or anyone else to basically to go and i think that it's really wful that my independent man here from vermont, you know, senator sanders, who basically ot screwed over by hillary

clinton and then he basically just flew right in to her deal and she was basically ending up, you know, she was -- i have been watching her for 30 years and it's like she has nothing to offer. host: lou ann, i'm going to stop you there, only because we have a lot of other people who want to weigh in as well. this is what it looked and sounded like as the house announcing the votes. house speaker paul ryan around 2:00 this afternoon. the speaker: the conference report is adopted and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. host: those cheers from house republicans as speaker paul ryan announcing the house vote. this headline tonight from "the

wall street journal" website as the senate revises the tax bill, still plans to vote tonight and the house passes the g.o.p. measure but will need to hold another vote tomorrow. richard reuben is following all of this, joining us live on the phone. this was supposed to be a recess week as you looked at the early calendar, now shaping up to be a pretty consequential week for this congress. guest: never count out the third week of december. congress always finds a way to stay here as long as they can and that's what happened here in the tax bill. republicans set themselves an end of the year deadline, an aggressive schedule to meet it, and they are really on the brink of doing that. host: what do we expect tonight and when do you think for our c-span2 viewers we'll see a vote in the senate? guest: you can stake a c-span2 power nap for a couple of hours, come back closer to 10:30 or

11:00 this evening for the senate vote, we don't have an exact time yet but take your time and then we'll get some time tomorrow morning the house will have to vote because some pieces are dropping out of the conference report on the tax bill because of what's known as the byrd rule in the senate. host: we talked earlier with aaron lorenzo about that. let me talk about this spending bill that needs to be approved before friday otherwise the prospect of a government shutdown. democrats holding firm on the issue of daca where does that stand? what are you hearing? guest: my best knowledge as far as i can tell is they're not much of anywhere. unlike the tax bill which is happening thru reconciliation, which can pass with a simple majority in the senate, any spending bill needs 60 votes in the senate. that empowers democrats to extract some sort of price and this is not a congress that sort

of figured out in most cases how to have bipartisan achievements even on must-pass bills. they're back, backed themselves up against a late december deadline with government funding running out at the end of the week and they don't quite have a path to get there host: let's talk about this tax bill. we've got that letter yesterday from the chair of the senate finance committee, orrin hatch, basically say nothing deal was struck with senator bob corker. you also have the anwr drilling which is part of the package to bring in senator mruczkowski. how did mainly senate republicans get to this point with the fact that even with john mccain here in washington they still feel comfortable enough they'll pass this tonight? guest: they feel like they've got almost everyone lined up, even senator corker, the only republican senator who voted against the tax bill the first time around, a couple of weeks ago. he's on board now. says he has the same concern he is had about the bill a cull at of weeks ago but his approach,

he's going to bet on america and assume there'll be good economic growth coming out of this bill even though the official scores say it will add to the budget deficits over the next decade by nearly $1 trillion. and so yeah, this is something that the has been a republican dream. it's been seven years or longer in the making. so in some ways if you just started paying attention, you're catching the last chapter of a very, very long story. host: the next chapter will be next year in 2018, speaker ryan said the proof will be in the results as the american people see this bill but a very different story from the house democratic leader nancy pelosi and others including senator mark warner calling it the worst piece of legislation he's ever seen ever. what can the american people believe? guest: the proof will be in people's paychecks and the economy republicans are hoping

on those two things. they hope people will say their take-home pay-go up in february when the withholding tables change and there'll be enough sustained economic growth for people to want to keep republicans around. the democratic point is the opposite. not to ignore growth but focus on the choices republicans made. to focus on the fact that they added $1.5 trillion to budget deficits over the next decade and chose to give some of that money to corporations and some of that money to big pass-through businesses and just sort of, from a democratic perspective, knows he -- sthose tilted priorities of of the republican party. expect a lot of the 2018 election to be fought on the grounds of this health care bill. we -- tax bill. and you usually you see it fought over health care bills. expect it to be fought over this tax bill. it's the biggest thing this republican party has done. it's their signature achievement. they believe it is absolutely the right thing for america and democrats believe just as

strongly it is absolutely the wrong thing. >> you may or may not know this but if the bill passes in the senate or house it will go to the president's desk when? could we see a bill signing ceremony this week or early january? have you heard anything alon those lines? goip we don't know yet. secretary mnuchin said it would be signed this week but they have not scheduled a signing yet. so safest bet is as early as this week and we'll kind of stay tuned and see if and when the president signs it. he will sign it at some point. he is in support of this measure. host: let's conclude where we began. what's going to happen in the next few hours in the senate? guest: you've got a vote at some point coming up on the byrd rule provisions to -- the republicans have made a motion to waive that rule, those constrictions. and that would take 60 votes to do. after that, at some point late

they are evening, we'll have a final vote on tax bill here in the senate. host: richard reuben, his work available on line at wsj.com. this is the headline at this hour as the senate revises the tax bill. still planning to vote tonight. the house passes that g.o.p. measure but a revote will take place tomorrow. it's been a busy evening for you. thanks for spending a couple of minutes with us, we appreciate it. guest: sure. host: let's go back to phone calls. joe on the republican line. what do you think of this? caller: i think the democrats are saying it's a sham. it's not a sham because i've done my research on it. i'm no rich person. i work at a dealership here in hudson, florida, $10 an hour, i'm lucky if i make $400 a week. i think the tax bill is good because one, it gets rid of the obamacare tax, which was unconstitutional, and two, personally for me it took $3,000. so any democrat that thinks that's good, they should actually reread and actually do

real research. this is not a sham. it helps mothers, because they increased the tax credit for parents per kid an gets rid of obamacare which puts more money back in my pocket which i can guest: so that is my thought. these democrats saying it's a sham, they need to do real research. it's not just for the rich, and even if it is for the rich, god bless it. going to hire people where i work. since trump took office, they have hired about 15 new people, and they are still hiring, and they are expanding. what is the business? guest: it's a dealership. host: ok. thanks very much for the call. this is a tweet from one of those democratic senators. bob casey writes the following.

"so let me get this straight. the comingnda for year includes custom social security, medicare, medicaid, and taking away health care for millions of americans? what happened to fighting for the forgotten american?" if you are interested in what the bird will is all about -- byrd rule is all about, you can check out what he said about the budget debate and how it was put in place, part of the c-span video library at c-span.org. bernadette from atlantic city, new jersey. good evening. guest: how are you this evening? host: fine. how are you? guest: good. thank you for taking my call. my point regarding this tax bill is similar. i think tax reform is something that needs to be done. personally, do i think this bill is the right option? no. main reason for that is a little bit of a point the gentleman earlier was making.

he claims, due to the fact he -- the longer have to individual mandate for the affordable care act as well as he sees he has had some savings here and there in terms of his taxes. he talks about spending that money in the economy. that ease up on studies in different economic experts will tell you that if you give someone who is living paycheck to paycheck or a poor person or someone who does not make a lot of money, you give them that money, they spend that money in the economy and then some. to bige money goes corporations, it goes to the 1%, it is in a bank account somewhere, and that is the difference. the money has to go to the people, so they spend it in the economy, and everything else fixes it health. host: bernadette from atlantic city, thanks for the call. paul has this point of view on his twitter page. "what i really don't understand here is that susan collins, she came out of health care a hero, and now she is rightly seen as a tool.

can she never get it back? what could possibly justify that choice? " he voted to help main street businesses. from the senate floor, mitch mcconnell on tonight's vote. >> the final text of this bill is a product of extensive open , the results of dozens of hearings on tax reform in recent years, and an open amendment process. senatehe house and joined together at a conference committee that carefully reconciles the two chambers bills. now, the time has come to vote. when senators vote for the tax cuts and jobs act, they will be voting for a bill that substantially cut taxes for middle-class families, and by reducing rate, it will help

working americans keep more of their paycheck and send less of their hard-earned money to washington. familiesass will benefit from a standard duction which is almost double its present level and a doubling of the child tax credit. they will benefit from the ability to deduct more of the medical expenses, increasing the tax savings turned of all times. during difficult times. the tax cuts and jobs act achieves all this while preserving the charitable reduction and adoption tax credit. it protects the exemption for university tuition but if it, a mortgage interest deduction remains, as does the deduction for state and local taxes. the result is a comprehensive tax reform bill that does what we set out to do. host: mitch mcconnell earlier today on capitol hill and senate republicans with a tweet

reinforcing what this means for middle-class families and it says "if you make $40,000 to $50,000 a year, you could see a 9.4% tax cut #tax reform." want to go to the exchange we read earlier from paul krugman, who was critical of senator susan collins. craig kaplan has this. cuts,ting those medicare which are posted in the congressional record and senator "this pledge is ironclad, and i hope, reassuring to our seniors." the agreement not to cut medicare was part of the plan put in place by congressional republicans to get the vote of susan collins. she is excited to support the legislation. the senate continues to meet at this hour. we are watching the debate on c-span two. a vote could come around 11:00 eastern time, and we will be