Betsy Make News Today

If roy moore losing the special election in alabama one month from now. susan collins and jeff flake have expressed serious reservations about the bill and today senator ron johnson became the first solid "no" vote telling "the wall street journal," "the plan unfairly benefits corporations more than other types of businesses". >> i was asked, can you support the current senate version. i wouldnt vote for it. its just that simple. doesnt mean i dont want to, you know, vote for a real solution. >>...

Through. >> there was a uniform agreement from the interest groups and also citizens, sleep-ins, sit-ins and what is it like on capitol hill now? >> well, it was easier to rally opposition against repealing the affordable care act because you had the specter of 20 million people who had health insurance who were not going to have it after they passed that bill. tax cuts are inherently easy to do. youre giving people money. and the obstacles they run into are sort of abstract concerns about the d...

You know, vote for a real solution. >> joining me is john harwood, editor at large with cnbc. betsy, its amazing to me how poorly this thing is polling. its supposed to be a big tax cut. usually people like that. this is the new quinnipiac polling. yes, 25%, no, 52 and not sure, 23. yet they are forging ahead anyway. what is an mating the folks there in the house and senate? >> i can tell you what is anmating them. the number one concern, not just the republican leadership in the house but the r...

Them. >> john, betsy make as great point because i was looking at some of the whip counts today in the house. theres a lot of members of congress, republicans, who represent affluent districts and theres 10 or 11 who are hard-nosed but a lot of yeses. as you know, john, and youve covered this, the constituents of those republicans might see a tax hike, remarkably, from a tax cut bill. youve got to think its political suicide unless theyve already priced in that they are going to lose anyway. >> ...

Done, its not going to happen next year in an election year. then they have to go fwook their donors and say thanks for spending tons to help us get elected. sorry we couldnt do literally anything. thats pressure on k street, pressure on paul ryans office, pressure on mitch mcconnell and thats why you see these guys scrambling to push through a bill because this is their last-ditch effort to keep the promises that they made that got them to take control of congress and the white house in the fir...

Tax cuts are inherently easy to do. youre giving people money. and the obstacles they run into are sort of abstract concerns about the debt and deficit. however, there are enough members right now who, as betsy indicated about ron johnson, mitch mcconnell has had leverage eafr. he didnt have leverage over john mccain or bob corker or jeff flake. republicans tried to solve this in the senate bill by making individual tax cuts expire and go poof at the end of eight years but the argument theyre ma...