At the first meeting of the Trump Leadership Council — an advisory group consisting of top CEOs from major companies — President Donald Trump asked these business leaders what was their biggest problem. I expected the answer to be America’s anti-growth tax system. The CEOs almost all listed the federal tax code as an albatross, but not the heaviest one. But I was surprised to learn that most insisted he biggest restraint on growth is federal red tape and regulation. Manufacturers, energy firms, financial services, agriculture interests — across all industries — federal rules were seen as mindless, inefficient, costly and incomprehensible. Read more here...
2. Republicans Clash Over ObamaCare Taxes - via Breibart
Republicans continue to clash over Obamacare taxes as Congress plans to draft a repeal package. Conservatives worry that a tax credit included in the Ryan plan would cost too much and might create an expensive new entitlement program. Congressman Mark Walker (R-NC), chairman of the Republican Study Committee says, “I want to make sure that we’re not getting to a place where we’re providing this open-ended benefit that enables people.”
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) said refundable tax credits could be a “new entitlement program.” He doubts that House leaders possess the votes necessary to pass refundable tax credits. Read more here...
3. House Republicans Offer Insight on ObamaCare Replacement - by Jason Pye
House Republican leaders and HHS Secretary Tom Price have been briefing the House Republican Conference on the alternatives with which they plan to replace ObamaCare. While the transition period between ObamaCare and the Republican alternative, which still has not been introduced in legislative text, is unspecified, the policy brief that Republican leaders have given to the conference has been leaked to the press. The brief, which can be found here, does not talk much about what parts of ObamaCare will be repealed. It does note that the individual and employer mandates will be zeroed out during the unspecified transition period and all the ObamaCare tax increases will be repealed.
The reconciliation bill that passed during the 114th Congress is supposed to be the baseline for repeal. This bill, which was vetoed in January 2016 by President Barack Obama, repealed most of the law, but it did not go after essential benefits and other regulations promulgated under the law. While it is not absolutely clear that the reconciliation bill in this Congress will mirror the bill from the previous Congress, it is clear that elements of a replacement will come in reconciliation, essentially repealing and replacing ObamaCare, as much can be done, at the same time. Read more here...
4. Congress Must Reform Civil Asset Forfeiture Laws - by Jason Pye via The Hill
Russ Caswell’s experience with civil asset forfeiture was “nothing more than an extortion plot.” The Tewksbury Police Department seized Motel Caswell, which his father built in 1955, because the property allegedly had a “substantial connection” to drug activity. Civil asset forfeiture is the process through which law enforcement can seize property suspected of being connected to criminal activity. While law enforcement insists the forfeiture is a means to go after the profits of illicit activity, including the drug trade, there are many examples of misguided law enforcement permanently seizing the property of innocent people like Russ Caswell or simply going after money rather than drugs. Read more here...
5. New Bill Could Save Vaping Market and Millions of Lives - via Competitive Enterprise Institute
It’s no secret that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wants to ban vapor-producing electronic cigarettes. Federal judges struck down the agency’s attempt to classify vaping products as “medical devices” and block their importation into the U.S. Instead, the agency deemed vapes “tobacco products,” making them subject to the same rules and regulations as traditional cigarettes, despite all evidence pointing toward their being much less harmful for consumers. If allowed to stand, the FDA’s new deeming rules would functionally eliminate 99 percent of vaping products from the market. Products that were available before 2007 would be exempt, but since no vapes were on the U.S. market before this date, all products will now be forced to go through the FDA’s expensive and onerous pre-approval process, with no guarantee of every returning to the market. Last week, however, two lawmakers introduced a bill that might save the vaping industry and potentially the lives of millions of Americans.
The Deeming Authority Clarification Act of 2017, introduced last week by Reps. Tom Cole (R-OK) and Sanford Bishop (D-GA), would amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act, giving FDA the authority to regulate vaping products as separate tobacco products while modifying the predicate date (the date at which products are grandfathered-in and need not go through the pre-approval process) to the date when they were deemed tobacco products. That is, instead of setting the grandfather date at 2007—when Congress gave the FDA power to regulate tobacco—it would allow the grandfather date for vapes to be 2017. Read more here...
Jason Pye
Director of Public Policy, FreedomWorks
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