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Tag: U.S Senate

  • U.S Senate passes sweeping tax reform

    U.S Senate passes sweeping tax reform

    The United States Senate has approved the most sweeping overhaul of the America tax system in more than three decades.

    Republicans said the tax cuts for corporations, small businesses and individuals would boost economic growth, the BBC reports.

    Democrats, who all voted against it, said it is designed to benefit the ultra-rich at the expense of the national deficit.

    For final approval, the legislation must go back to the House on Wednesday for a procedural issue.

    If it passes, as expected, it will be President Donald Trump’s first major legislative triumph.

    Read Also: U.S Senate backs tax overhaul

    Vice-President Mike Pence presided over the vote and announced the result.

    “On this vote the ayes are 51, the nays are 48. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is passed,” he said.

    Shortly before the final tally was announced, protesters in the Senate’s public gallery shouted “kill the bill.”

  • U.S Senate backs tax overhaul

    U.S Senate backs tax overhaul

    United States senate have passed a sweeping tax cuts bill, paving the way for President Donald Trump’s first big legislative victory.

    The package would mark the biggest tax overhaul since the 1980s, the BBC reports.

    It was passed by 51 votes to 49, after a series of amendments in a marathon session.

    Democrats complained it only benefited the wealthy and big business.

    The plan sees a sharp cut in corporation tax, but a Senate committee finding has warned it would add $1trillion (£742billion) to the budget deficit.

    President Trump wants the measures enacted by the end of the year and congratulated Republicans for taking the U.S “one step closer to delivering massive tax cuts for working families.”

    The Senate will now have to merge its legislation with that passed last month by the House of Representatives, before it can be signed into law by the President.

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  • FBI: Trump to nominate Christopher Gray as head

    FBI: Trump to nominate Christopher Gray as head

    President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he will nominate Christopher Wray, former U.S. Assistant Attorney-General under President George Bush, to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

    “I will be nominating Christopher Wray, a man of impeccable credentials, to be the new Director of the FBI. Details to follow,” Trump said in a statement on Twitter.

    The U.S. Senate must approve Trump’s choice to replace former FBI Director James Comey, whom the president fired last month amid the agency’s ongoing probe into alleged Russian meddling into the U.S. election.

    Trump’s announcement comes the day before Comey is scheduled to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Moscow’s alleged interference and any potential ties to Trump’s campaign or associates.

    The president met last week with candidates for the FBI director post, including Wray, according to White House spokesman Sean Spicer.

    Wray currently works for King and Spalding’s Washington and Atlanta offices where he handles various white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement cases, according to the firm.

    He served as assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s criminal division from 2003 to 2005, working on corporate fraud scandals and cases involving U.S. financial markets, according to his biography on the law firm’s website.

    Many lawmakers have said that Trump should pick a career law enforcement professional.

    One former FBI official questioned whether Wray had the management experience to run an agency with more than 35,000 people, given the small size of the division he ran at the Justice Department.

  • U.S Senate rejects gun control bills

    The United States Senate has rejected plans to tighten gun controls, including the restriction of weapons sales to people on terrorism watch lists.

    Four proposals were brought before the Senate after 49 people died in an attack on a gay nightclub in Florida, the BBC reports.

    But Democratic and Republican senators voted along party lines, blocking each other’s bills.

    Senators strongly disagreed about how to prevent more attacks happening in future.

    Republican Senator John Cornyn said: “Our colleagues want to make this about gun control when what we should be making this about is the fight to eliminate the Islamic extremism that is the root cause for what happened in Orlando. My colleagues in many ways want to treat the symptoms without fighting the disease.”

    For her part, Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski said: “Why is it we would go through such incredible scrutiny to board an airplane to protect me against terrorist, and yet we have no scrutiny of the people on the terrorist watch list to be able to buy a gun?”