Trump’s top advisors discuss tax initiatives at White House summit

Trump is expected to end a program protecting undocumented immigrants brought to the USA as children.

With all these fiscal issues directly affecting financial executives, here is what Congress will need to address in the coming weeks.

Both houses of the US Congress are back in session today after a truncated summer break. U.S. President Donald Trump has requested almost $8 billion for initial relief for areas hit by Hurricane Harvey.

Congress must raise the debt ceiling by early October to stave off an unprecedented USA government debt default, which would shake global markets. The United States is on track to hit its mandated debt limit by the end of the month unless Congress increases it. As usual they planned to rely on Democratic votes to get it over the finish line without conservative support, though Democrats were withholding judgment. Plus, if Republicans want to take another shot at repealing Obamacare this year without facing the threat of a filibuster by Democrats, they’ll have to do it by the end of September.

“This was mostly about procedure: How we get from point A to point B and make sure tax reform doesn’t get lost”, said one source familiar with the meeting. “Pass disaster relief. Prevent a default so that those emergency resources can actually get to Americans who need them”.

There is no time to waste. The need for emergency relief funding is now only the most urgent item atop an already tight legislative agenda. FEMA has just $1 billion remaining in its disaster accounts.

Republicans also must reach agreement soon on a budget blueprint for next year if they want to use special rules to avoid a Democratic filibuster of a major tax overhaul, the GOP’s biggest goal for the remainder of the year. Trump had threatened a shutdown fight over his border wall this month, but White House aides have signaled to Congress that he plans to delay that battle until lawmakers debate a fuller spending measure later in the year.

But if the group decides to vote against the bill it could exacerbate tensions among House Republicans and raise the specter that the bill could pass without a majority of the majority party – violating an informal rule that House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) had pledged to adhere to when he became speaker in 2015.

The Trump administration’s tax overhaul plan bears little resemblance to the reform efforts of the 1980s and wouldn’t do much to boost USA economic growth, Harvard professor Lawrence Summers said. It remains to be seen if the legislation willonly focus on rate reduction or will attempt true tax reform by including major changes to tax code such as establishment of a tax rate for pass-through income, repatriation of foreign profits, a shift from a worldwide system to a territorial framework, immediate expensing and disallowance of the deduction of net interest expense.

“It’s hard for me to find a place anywhere in the country where a Democrat couldn’t stand on his or her two feet and proclaim: ‘He’s breaking a campaign promise by saying you the taxpayer has to pay for it, ‘” Marshall said. “We’re going to reduce taxes for companies”.

Trump and his wife Melania marked a national day of prayer for hurricane victims on Sunday by attending church services at St Johns Episcopal Church near the White House.

“I have every confidence Congress will reauthorize that program”, said Tom Bossert, White House homeland security adviser.

After the 2012 Presidential Election when Republican candidate Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama, the Republican party actually did something fairly awesome. The phase-out will happen in six months’ time, a period meant to give Congress a chance to come up with a solution. The Trump administration has urged that the two measures be combined.

“These funds are needed, and they are needed now”.

“There’s a kind of a curious logic”, he said, “that because things are so bad fiscally, we ought to just make it easy and do a clean debt-ceiling increase”.