Highway funding work continues. The Senate continues its work on highway funding legislation, scrambling to finish its work by the end of the week. If it doesn’t send a bill over by tomorrow, the House will not have to time to consider it before current funding expires on Friday. Neither the House nor the Senate version includes an increase in the gas tax and TPC’s Howard Gleckman wonders how conservatives, who used to support the levy, have fallen out of love.
Little love for the IRS Commissioner. Twenty-one House Republicans have signed a letter demanding that Commissioner John Koskinen be fired. They have lost trust in him over the handling of missing email messages and believe he misled Congress. Meanwhile, the Senate Finance Committee will soon release its bipartisan report on the IRS.
Also today: A hearing on dynamic scoring. The Joint Economic Committee holds a hearing today to examine how dynamic scoring will affect fiscal policy making. Panelists include former Senate Banking Committee chair Phil Gramm, Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute, John Diamond of Rice University, and former Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff John L. Buckley.
“Plan B” from Greece. The country’s former Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, shared details of a secret plan to create a parallel banking system: “We were planning to create, surreptitiously, reserve accounts attached to every tax file number, without telling anyone, just to have this system in a function under wraps.” Greek leaders examined the contingency in case Greece exited the Euro. Varoufakis shared this information ten days after he resigned from his post.
Revised plans in Romania. The country’s ruling party must recall Parliament from recess to vote on revised tax cut plans next month. President Klaus Iohannis would not sign previous measures into law last month. Cuts include a reduction to the sales tax from 24 percent to 19 percent, salary tax cuts, and fuel tax cuts. If enacted, they would take effect next year.
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