MSNBC host Chris Hayes discussed a bipartisan tax bill and a bipartisan border deal, highlighting the priorities and potential outcomes.
The tax bill includes benefits for families and tax breaks for businesses, showcasing the parties’ differing focuses.
The border deal, favored by Republicans, may face opposition due to political motivations, particularly from former President Trump and his allies.
“Something pretty amazing happened on Capitol Hill yesterday. In the midst of an election year and deep political divisions, the big bipartisan majority in the House passed a major peace of legislation. The $78 billion tax bill that passed yesterday is a compromise that gives each party something it wants,” Hayes said.
Hayes predicted that the tax bill will pass while the border deal might not, emphasizing the parties’ policy priorities and their willingness to act on them.
“Democrats get an expansion of the child tax credit, albeit scaled back from the version that passed in 2021 and lapsed after a year. The legislation would give eligible families an average tax cut of $680, and left as many as 400,000 children above the poverty line in one year, according to estimates. So, that was a big priority for Democrats,” he said.
“Now, you will never guess what Republicans wanted in exchange. A bunch of tax breaks for businesses and corporations. And they got it.”
“As ‘Bloomberg’ explains, the bill would restore expired tax breaks allowing business to more quickly recoup the costs of domestic research and development, interest on business loans and investment in equipment. Boeing, General Motors, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple are among the companies that stand to benefit.”
“Now, this is sort of a perfect illustration of the priorities of the two parties and whose material interests they pursue. Democrats are like, please, just a few hundred dollars a month for families with kids. And Republicans responded, okay, if you give tax breaks for some of the wealthiest countries in the world, we can get to a deal,” Hayes said.
“But the compromise worked, at least in the House. It may not hold in the Senate.”
“Passing a tax bill that makes the president look good — mailing out checks before the election — means he could be re-elected, and then we won’t extend the 2017 tax cuts,” Sen. Chuck Grassley said.
“Well, he’s being honest about it. We don’t want to do any good because it might help Biden,” Hayes said.
“For Grassley and some of his colleagues, it is more important to reelect Donald Trump than literally to put more money in working families pockets, or even in the coffers of big businesses. So, this will be a test for Trump’s Republican Party. Will they destroy a deal for political purposes, or seize the opportunity to actually get something done?”
“Right now, that very same question is hanging over another bipartisan deal that has been teetering on the edge of collapse. You probably heard about this one because after months of intense negotiations, the bipartisan group of senators hammered out an agreement on the border. And it is pretty much a clear win for Republican policy priorities there.”
“A deal would, as far as I know, again, they haven’t released the text, impose new limits and standards for people seeking asylum in the United States, it will speed up the processing of those asylum claims, and make it harder for migrants to appeal if they’re rejected.”
“The Department of Homeland Security will also give new authority to basically close the border if the number of crossings passes a certain threshold, though it’s a little unclear how you can get of that. You got Republican senators including key negotiator James Lankford of Oklahoma who are desperately begging in every venue they can for their colleagues to support what they say is like an enormous win, the best deal they’re going to get.”
“This is a historic moment to reform the border in a way that would give tools to the next president they don’t have today and lessen the flow to take pressure off people in Texas and Arizona and all throughout the border,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said.
“The Democrats will not give us — will not give us anything close to this if we have to get 60 votes to United States Senate in a Republican majority. We have a unique opportunity here, and the timing is right to do this,” Sen. John Thune said.
“This is our moment to actually say, let’s do as much as we can possibly get done. But this has a very significant change in our border security and that’s what Americans are crying for,” Sen. James Lankford said.
“By the way, everyone basically reasoned (ph) that. I mean, immigration advocates who don’t like the deal at all are very worried about it. Again, we don’t have the bill text yet, so like they’re not just like, trumpet this up, this is true, okay? So, here, they got a win. But once again, what’s going to happen?” Hayes pressed.
“Well, the problem is Donald Trump and his insatiable thirst for another term in the White House. You see, Trump and his allies desperately want to use the crisis at the border and the real human lives on each side of it as a political tool. So what they’re going to try to do is just kill the deal so the border remains in — as they say — crisis, and they can attack President Joe Biden on the campaign trail.”
“There is zero chance I will support this horrible open borders betrayal of America. It’s not going to happen. I’d rather have no bill than a bad bill. A bad bill you can’t have. And that’s what was happening in the House,” Trump said.
“Donald Trump, name three things in the bill, just gave me three. It’s funny to even think about,” Hayes said.
“So, as usual, Trump’s lackeys in Congress are lining up to do his bidding. Speaker Mike Johnson already called the deal “dead on arrival” in the House. So, now, you got, on both these issues, right, two bipartisan compromises in each House, the border and taxes, and Republican faces a really interesting test. What do they actually care about, and what do they just like to talk about?”
“And I’m going to make a prediction. I think they’re going to kill the border deal because they like to talk about immigration, the politics of the border, and they love beating up on Democrats and love beating up on immigrants. But they don’t actually care about the substance of it. They don’t care about the policy, about improving it.”
“Just look at what happened the last time they had unified government. Remember this happened? The first half of Donald Trump’s term, what did they do? Oh wait, yeah, nothing. They didn’t build the wall. They didn’t stem the flow of migrants taking asylum. They did absolutely nothing to solve the problem when they had unified control.”
“But you know what did they do, you know what they get done — they enacted, again, massive tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals because at its core, underneath all the rhetoric, cutting taxes for businesses, corporations, and rich people, is it. It’s the single policy focus of the modern Republican Party. It is the only thing, the only thing they are actually invested in getting done.”
“And so my prediction is that they find a way to tax — pass the tax bill, that it will pass, and the border bill will hit the cutting room floor. We’ll see if I’m right.”
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