PTI, Washington :
America is coming back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, President Donald Trump has said as he highlighted the benefits of the recently passed tax reform bill to the country.
President Donald Trump visited H&K Equipment, an industrial equipment company in Pittsburgh on Thursday.
“I’ve come to the great city of Pittsburgh to stand with people to show the world that America is back, and that we are coming back bigger and better and stronger than ever before,” Trump said in his address to workers of the company.
At the centre of America’s resurgence are the massive tax cuts, he stressed.
The tax cuts, he said, are the most significant reforms in American history, with tremendous tax relief for working families, for small businesses, for big businesses that produce jobs.
The sweeping overhaul of the US tax system was signed into law by President Donald Trump just before Christmas.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will see corporate tax rates falling from 35 per cent to 21 per cent.
Alongside new restrictions on shifting profits abroad, the cut is likely to lead to a major repatriation of US business profits that are at present being sheltered offshore.
Individual taxes will also be cut, but more modestly. He also said his administration has created nearly 2.2 million jobs since the election.
The unemployment rate is at, now, an 18-year low and the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits just hit a 45-year low, he said.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump warned Thursday of the “devastating” consequences of a government shutdown even as he lobbed wrenches into intense Republican maneuvering to avoid a politically embarrassing funding debacle.
With the federal government set to run out of money at midnight Friday, the president added to the chaos with a burst of early morning tweets.
He second-guessed Republican leaders in Congress and slapped down his own chief of staff who had been leading a White House push on Capitol Hill for a budget compromise.
Arriving at the Pentagon for a visit, Trump told reporters the government “could very well” shut down Friday.
The House of Representatives was expected to vote as early as Thursday on a short-term funding measure, but it was unclear if Republicans had the votes to prevail.
In the event of a shutdown, federal employees for agencies considered non-essential are ordered to stay home until a budget deal is struck, at which point they are paid retroactively. The most recent shutdowns-in 1995, 1996 and 2013 — saw some 800,000 workers furloughed per day.
Key government bodies such as the White House, Congress, State Department and Pentagon would remain operational, but would likely furlough some staff. The military would still report for duty, but troops-including those in combat-would potentially not be paid.
The finger-pointing had already begun, with each side blaming the other for a failure to reach a budget compromise after three previous funding extensions.
“A government shutdown will be devastating to our military… something the Dems care very little about!” Trump tweeted.
And yet in another tweet, Trump criticized the Republican short-term funding measure, opposing a sweetener intended to make it hard for Democrats to vote against it.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said later he had spoken to the president, and insisted: “He fully supports passing what we’re bringing to the floor today.”
The sweetener is a six-year extension of a popular children’s health insurance program, known as CHIP, a program Democrats have worked hard to protect.
But Trump insisted: “CHIP should be part of a long term solution, not a 30 Day, or short term, extension!”
Republican Senator John Cornyn quickly corrected Trump in a counter-tweet: “The current house Continuing Resolution package has a six-year extension of CHIP, not a 30 day extension.”
Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House, dismissed the Republicans move on CHIP as “like giving you a bowl of doggie doo, put a cherry on top sundae. This is nothing.
“This CHIP should have been done in september,” she told reporters.
Up against a similar deadline last month, lawmakers had passed a short-term resolution to keep the federal government funded until January 20.
America is coming back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, President Donald Trump has said as he highlighted the benefits of the recently passed tax reform bill to the country.
President Donald Trump visited H&K Equipment, an industrial equipment company in Pittsburgh on Thursday.
“I’ve come to the great city of Pittsburgh to stand with people to show the world that America is back, and that we are coming back bigger and better and stronger than ever before,” Trump said in his address to workers of the company.
At the centre of America’s resurgence are the massive tax cuts, he stressed.
The tax cuts, he said, are the most significant reforms in American history, with tremendous tax relief for working families, for small businesses, for big businesses that produce jobs.
The sweeping overhaul of the US tax system was signed into law by President Donald Trump just before Christmas.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will see corporate tax rates falling from 35 per cent to 21 per cent.
Alongside new restrictions on shifting profits abroad, the cut is likely to lead to a major repatriation of US business profits that are at present being sheltered offshore.
Individual taxes will also be cut, but more modestly. He also said his administration has created nearly 2.2 million jobs since the election.
The unemployment rate is at, now, an 18-year low and the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits just hit a 45-year low, he said.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump warned Thursday of the “devastating” consequences of a government shutdown even as he lobbed wrenches into intense Republican maneuvering to avoid a politically embarrassing funding debacle.
With the federal government set to run out of money at midnight Friday, the president added to the chaos with a burst of early morning tweets.
He second-guessed Republican leaders in Congress and slapped down his own chief of staff who had been leading a White House push on Capitol Hill for a budget compromise.
Arriving at the Pentagon for a visit, Trump told reporters the government “could very well” shut down Friday.
The House of Representatives was expected to vote as early as Thursday on a short-term funding measure, but it was unclear if Republicans had the votes to prevail.
In the event of a shutdown, federal employees for agencies considered non-essential are ordered to stay home until a budget deal is struck, at which point they are paid retroactively. The most recent shutdowns-in 1995, 1996 and 2013 — saw some 800,000 workers furloughed per day.
Key government bodies such as the White House, Congress, State Department and Pentagon would remain operational, but would likely furlough some staff. The military would still report for duty, but troops-including those in combat-would potentially not be paid.
The finger-pointing had already begun, with each side blaming the other for a failure to reach a budget compromise after three previous funding extensions.
“A government shutdown will be devastating to our military… something the Dems care very little about!” Trump tweeted.
And yet in another tweet, Trump criticized the Republican short-term funding measure, opposing a sweetener intended to make it hard for Democrats to vote against it.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said later he had spoken to the president, and insisted: “He fully supports passing what we’re bringing to the floor today.”
The sweetener is a six-year extension of a popular children’s health insurance program, known as CHIP, a program Democrats have worked hard to protect.
But Trump insisted: “CHIP should be part of a long term solution, not a 30 Day, or short term, extension!”
Republican Senator John Cornyn quickly corrected Trump in a counter-tweet: “The current house Continuing Resolution package has a six-year extension of CHIP, not a 30 day extension.”
Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House, dismissed the Republicans move on CHIP as “like giving you a bowl of doggie doo, put a cherry on top sundae. This is nothing.
“This CHIP should have been done in september,” she told reporters.
Up against a similar deadline last month, lawmakers had passed a short-term resolution to keep the federal government funded until January 20.
