Senate

Just hours after rejecting some version of 'repeal-and-replace' overnight, Senate Republicans have, as expected, failed to get enough votes for a key proposal from Rand Paul that would have repealed much of Obamacare.

Under pressure from conservatives such as Rand Paul...

“Republicans promised to repeal Obamacare, and as we move forward in this process, I urge them to join me in supporting a clean repeal of as much of this disastrous law as possible,”

As reported earlier, after yesterday's surprising Senate GOP "victory", when it found the bare minimum number of votes to open debate on Republican Healthcare legislation, Republicans suffered an immediate defeat just hours later when the Senate voted soundly against (with 9 Republicans joining Democrats) a "Repeal and Replace" of Obamacare. Shortly, the Senate is expected to vote on a clean Repeal bill (it was originally scheduled for noon but was pushed back to 3:30pm) which, however, is also not expected to have the 51 votes necessary to be approved.

If this is what passes for a legislative victory in the Trump administration, the president may be in trouble.

Less than a day after the Senate GOP leadership mustered the minimum number of Republican votes necessary to begin debate on a bill to repeal Obamacare (and even then thanks only to a tiebreaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence), the Republican campaign to kill the legislation remains in chaos.

S&P futures were fractionally higher (+0.1% to 2,476) with all eyes on the Fed's rate decision as investors await another earnings deluge from companies including Facebook, Coca-Cola and Boeing. Asian and European shares were also higher, prompted by momentum from the latest US record high; the Dollar rebound continued while oil rose above $48 as copper hit a two year high.

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D) addressed the Senate floor today, discussing Trump's Twitter attacks on AG Sessions (I can't believe I just wrote that), admonishing his character for publicly outing his first establishment ally in the Senate.