Senate Republicans unveil tax proposal, House GOP passes its plan out of committee

On Thursday afternoon, Senate Republicans released the framework for their tax overhaul, delaying a steep cut in corporate taxes for a year and eliminating deductions for state and local taxes — for individuals, not businesses — among other differences with the House bill. The Senate version also leaves seven tax brackets, versus the House proposal's four brackets, lowering the top rate for wealthy individuals to 38.5 percent from 39.6 percent. Also on Thursday, the House Ways and Means Committee approved an amended version of their tax plan, sending it to the House floor.

According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, which analyzes congressional tax plans, the Senate bill would add $1.495 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years while the latest House version would add $1.457 trillion. The plans can add no more than $1.5 trillion under rules Senate Republicans passed to allow them to approve the bill with just 50 votes.

On the other differences, "as leaders in each chamber grapple with difficult trade-offs on tax rates, deductions, and deficits, the House is making decisions the Senate won't accept and the Senate is doing the same to the House," The Washington Post reports. Among those differences, the Senate would narrow the pool of multimillionaires who would have to pay the estate tax while the House phases the tax out entirely, and the Senate retains deductions for medical expenses and mortgage interest. Both versions would nearly double the child tax credit and keep the adoption credit. The Senate's decision to cut the top corporate tax rate to 20 percent, from 35 percent, in 2019 instead of next year sent the stock market lower.

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Senate leaders and White House officials called the plan historic and necessary, but as you can see below, reporters were mostly interested in what Senate Republicans thought about the allegations that Alabama Senate nominee Roy Moore fondled a 14-year-old girl when he was 32. Peter Weber