REPUBLICANS UNVEIL TAX BILL – AT 12:38 P.M. ET:  Finally, some progress, but expect this bill to go through many revisions.   From Fox: 

House Republicans on Thursday unveiled their long-awaited tax bill which preserves the popular 401K retirement account, lowers rates for many individual households but trims deductions for state and local taxes.

A summary of the plan, which was made available to reporters ahead of its public release, would also reduce the cap on the popular deduction to interest on mortgages to $500,000 for newly purchased homes. The current cap is $1 million.

The plan also limits the deductibility of local property taxes to $10,000 while eliminating the deduction for state income taxes. Republicans in high-tax states such as New York and New Jersey had come out strongly against it.

“I view the elimination of the deduction as a geographic redistribution of wealth, picking winners and losers,” New York Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin said. “I don’t want my home state to be a loser, and that really shouldn’t come as any surprise.”

Called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the GOP plan would also leave the top individual tax rate at 39.6 percent.

The child tax credit will rise to $1,600 from $1,000, though the $4,050 per child exemption would be repealed.

The legislation is the first major revamp of the U.S. tax code in three decades and has been a top legislative and political priority of Republicans.

COMMENT:  Now the real combat begins.  The key news reporting will involve analyzing how the typical "family of four" will fare under the plan.  No two analyses will result in exactly the same figures.

You may be sure that the authors of the bill allowed plenty of wiggle room for negotiations.  Republicans know that this is make-or-break for them.  If they can't pass a tax bill, they're doomed.

November 2, 2017