Senate

Update (5:55PM EST): After a full day of debating the GOP tax reform bill, the Senate has now approved a motion to...drum roll please...debate the GOP tax reform bill.  As we detailed below, this was the first big test for the GOP's tax bill before the entire Senate and it narrowly passed with a vote of 52-48.  No Democrats voted in favor of the procedural motion to begin debate and all Republicans towed the party line.

US equity futures continued their push higher into record territory overnight (ES +0.1%), and the VIX is 1.5% lower and back under 10, after yesterday's blistering surge in US stocks which jumped 1%, the most since Sept. 11, following Powell's deregulation promise, ahead of today's 2nd estimate of U.S. Q3 GDP which is expected to be revised up. U.S.

Authored by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

The GOP has become so politically desperate that they might as well enact a two-word statute and be done with it. It would simply read: Tax Bill!

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

Why would Christian conservatives in good conscience go to the polls Dec. 12 and vote for Judge Roy Moore, despite the charges of sexual misconduct with teenagers leveled against him?

Answer: That Alabama Senate race could determine whether Roe v. Wade is overturned. The lives of millions of unborn may be the stakes.

With roughly 14 sessions of Congress left before the New Year break, the GOP’s chances of passing comprehensive tax reform by the end of the year – as the White House has promised to do - are looking increasingly remote. So far, the biggest obstacle – as with the Republicans disastrous failure to repeal and replace Obamacare – is the Senate, where disparate groups of lawmakers are opposing the bill for different, and sometimes contradictory, reasons.