Donald Trump is well-known for his rather direct manner and apparently this also extends to naming legislation.
The President is reported to be pushing for his long-awaited tax reform bill to be called...
“The Cut Cut Cut Act”
According to ABC News, a senior congressional aide and a senior White House official have revealed a conflict in the White House over the name of the bill which has yet to be decided less than 24 hours before it is unveiled.
There is some method in the apparent madness - internal polling by the administration shows voters respond more favourably to language that focuses on tax cuts rather than tax reform.
And what better way to focus on cuts than to repeat it three times?
Outside of its official designation, Republicans in the US House of Representatives will delay the release of the legislation by one day until Thursday, the head of the chamber’s tax-writing panel said late on Tuesday.
“In consultation with President Trump and our leadership team, we have decided to release the bill text on Thursday,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady said in a statement.
“We are pleased with the progress we are making and we remain on schedule to take action and approve a bill at our Committee beginning next week,” the Republican lawmaker added.
In a tweet on Tuesday night before Brady’s statement, President Donald Trump said:
Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress, are looking to tax reform for their first legislative victory since Trump took office in January.
Democrats say the Trump tax plan is a giveaway to corporations and the rich.
Elsewhere, Trump made his first on-camera comments about Tuesday’s terror attack in New York, sparking a debate about the rights of the suspect.
Senator Lindsey Graham urged authorities to treat Saipov as an enemy combatant, a move that would allow investigators to question the man without him having a lawyer present.
Trump said he would be open to transferring Saipov to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where other suspects including alleged September 11 plotters are held.
“Send him to Gitmo. I would certainly consider that,” Trump told reporters. “We also have to come up with punishment that’s far quicker and far greater than the punishment these animals are getting right now.”
During the “War on Terror” the designation of enemy fighters as “unlawful enemy combatants” rather than “prisoners of war” allowed them to be treated as hostile but not in accordance with The Geneva Conventions.
This allowed them to be held for as long as the War on Terror lasted which in practice has meant indefinitely, hence why there are still men being held at Guantanamo Bay.
It also allowed a culture of human rights violations to flourish which led to such infamous incidents as the Abu Ghraib scandal and the debate over whether waterboarding constituted torture.