Senate Budget Committee

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.

One of the reason why the torrid dollar rally of the past few weeks appears to have plateaued, at least for the time being, is that just like earlier in the year, doubts have emerged about the viability of the "new and improved" tax plan, which according to the Tax Policy Center would mostly benefit the "Top 1", even as it eventually pushes taxes for the upper middle class progressively higher.