Tag Archives: Congress

White House, intel chiefs want to make digital spying law permanent

Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats (2nd-R) testifies as he appears alongside acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe (L), Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (2nd-L) and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers (R) at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in Washington, U.S., June 7, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House and U.S. intelligence chiefs Wednesday backed making permanent a law that allows for the collection of digital communications of foreigners overseas, escalating a fight in Congress over privacy and security.

The law, enshrined in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, is due to expire on December 31 unless Congress votes to reauthorize it, but is considered vital by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Privacy advocates have criticized the law though for allowing the incidental collection of data belonging to millions of Americans without a search warrant.

The push to make the law permanent may lead to a contentious debate over renewal of Section 702 in Congress, where lawmakers in both parties are deeply divided over whether to adopt transparency and oversight reforms.

“We cannot allow adversaries abroad to cloak themselves in the legal protections we extend to Americans,” White House Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert wrote in an editorial published in the New York Times newspaper on Wednesday.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, speaking on behalf of other intelligence agency leaders, also told the Senate Intelligence Committee panel on Wednesday that the statute should be made permanent, saying it was necessary to keep the United States safe from national security threats.

NSA Director Rogers added that the law had been vital to preventing terrorism in allied countries as well.

Fourteen Republican senators, including every Republican member of the Senate intelligence panel, introduced a bill on Tuesday that would make part of Section 702 permanent.

The statute, which grants the National Security Agency a considerable freedom in the collection of foreigners’ digital communications, normally comes with a “sunset” clause, meaning that roughly every five years lawmakers need to reconsider its impact on privacy and civil liberties.

‘SPY ON AMERICANS’

Intelligence Director Coats said it was not feasible for the NSA to provide an estimate of the number of Americans whose communications are ensnared incidentally under Section 702.

Coats and other officials had previously told Congress they would attempt to share an estimate publicly before the statute expires. A frustrated Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, who has asked for such an estimate for several years, said Coats “went back on a pledge.”

Privacy advocates criticized the push to make Section 702 permanent, arguing that regular reviews of the law were necessary to conduct appropriate oversight and prevent potential abuses.

“After months of criticizing the government for allegedly spying on his presidential campaign, President Trump is now hypocritically endorsing a bill that would make permanent the NSA authority that is used to spy on Americans without a warrant,” said Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 revealed the sweeping nature of 702 surveillance, prompting outrage internationally and embarrassing some U.S. technology firms shown to be involved in a program known as Prism.

Last week, Facebook <FB.O>, Amazon <AMZN.O>, Alphabet Inc’s Google <GOOGL.O> sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to adopt several reforms to the law, including codifying the recent termination of a type of NSA surveillance that collected Americans’ communications with someone living overseas that merely mentioned a foreign intelligence target.

Making the law permanent without changes would preclude codifying that change.

Reuters reported in March that the Trump administration supported renewal of Section 702 without any changes, citing an unnamed White House official, but it was not clear at the time whether it wanted the law made permanent.

(This version of the story corrects paragraph 14 to add dropped words “embarrassing some U.S. technology firms involved in”)

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Alden Bentley and Paul Simao)

Trump seeks to slash government spending in budget plan

FILE PHOTO - President Donald Trump's FY2018 budget is seen printed at the Government Publishing Office in Washington, U.S. on May 19, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo

By Roberta Rampton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House on Tuesday will ask Republicans who control the U.S. Congress – and federal purse strings – to slash spending on healthcare and food assistance programs for the poor as they push ahead on plans to cut taxes and trim the deficit.

President Donald Trump is set to propose a raft of politically sensitive cuts in his first full budget, for the fiscal year that starts in October, a proposal that some analysts expected would be put aside by lawmakers as they craft their own budget and spending plans.

Trump, who is traveling overseas and will miss the unveiling of his plan, wants lawmakers to cut $3.6 trillion in government spending over 10 years, balancing the budget by the end of the decade, according to a preview given to reporters on Monday.

More than $800 billion would be cut from the Medicaid program for the poor and more than $192 billion from food stamps.

Republicans are under pressure to deliver on promised tax cuts, the cornerstone of the Trump administration’s pro-business economic agenda, which would cut the business tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percent, and reduce the number of personal tax brackets to three from seven.

But their policy agenda has stalled as the White House grapples with the political fallout from Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey.

Comey had been leading a probe of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

Trump’s biggest savings would come from cuts to the Medicaid program made as part of a Republican healthcare bill passed by the House of Representatives.

The bill aims to gut the Obama administration’s signature 2010 Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, that expanded insurance coverage and the government-run Medicaid program for the poor. But it faces an uncertain future in the Senate, which is writing its own law.

The White House proposed changes that would require more childless people receiving help from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps, to work.

STEEP CUTS

The plan would slash supports for farmers, impose user fees for meat inspection and sell off half the nation’s emergency oil stockpile. Another politically fraught item is a proposal for cuts to the U.S. Postal Service, a goal that has long eluded lawmakers and administrations from both political parties.

The first look at the plan came in a “skinny budget” released in March – a document that received a tepid response from Congress.

Most departments would see steep cuts, particularly the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency.

There is some new spending. The Pentagon would get a boost, and there would be a down payment to begin building a wall on the southern border with Mexico, which was a central promise of Trump’s presidential campaign.

The budget includes $25 billion for a plan to give parents six weeks of paid leave after the birth or adoption of a child, and $200 billion to encourage state and local governments to boost spending on roads, bridges, airports and other infrastructure programs.

The plan drew immediate fire from lobby groups, including from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which said it relied on “rosy assumptions,” gimmicks and unrealistic cuts.

“While we appreciate the administration’s focus on reducing the debt, when using more realistic assumptions, the president’s budget does not add up,” Maya MacGuineas, the group’s president, said in a statement.

Trump’s plan relies on forecasts for economic growth of 3 percent a year by the end of his first term – well beyond Congressional Budget Office assumptions of 1.9 percent growth.

“That assumes a pessimism about America, about the economy, about its people, about its culture, that we’re simply refusing to accept,” White House budget director Mick Mulvaney told reporters on Monday.

(Additional reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb, David Shepardson, Timothy Gardner, Ginger Gibson, Jason Lange and Julia Edwards Ainsley in Washington, and PJ Huffstutter in Chicago; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Trump faces major test as vote looms on U.S. healthcare bill

A cyclist passes the the U.S. Capitol, on the day the House is expected to vote here to repeal Obamacare in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 4, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Richard Cowan and Yasmeen Abutaleb

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives was set on Thursday for a cliffhanger vote to repeal Obamacare, as Republican leaders worked to deliver President Donald Trump a win for one of his top legislative priorities.

House Republican leaders have expressed confidence the bill would pass and several party moderates who previously objected to the measure got behind it on Wednesday, giving it new momentum.

“We’re optimistic that we’ll pass it out of the House today,” Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, chairman of the conservative Freedom Caucus, told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program on Thursday.

The vote, which a House Republican aide said was due this afternoon, was expected to be close. Even if the measure passes the House, it faces daunting odds in the Senate where Republicans hold a narrower majority.

“Today is the next step in what is likely to be a very long process,” Republican Representative Michael Burgess of Texas also said on MSNBC.

Keen to score his first major legislative victory since taking office in January, Trump threw his own political capital behind the bill, meeting Burgess and other lawmakers and calling them in an effort to win their support.

Trump, whose Republican party controls both the House and Senate, is seeking to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Aides said he worked the phones furiously.

Wavering moderate Republicans had worried that the legislation to overhaul President Barack Obama’s 2010 signature healthcare law would leave too many people with pre-existing medical conditions unable to afford health coverage.

But the skeptical Republican lawmakers got behind the bill after meeting with Trump to float a compromise proposal expected to face unanimous Democratic opposition.

The legislation’s prospects brightened after members of the Freedom Caucus, a faction of conservative House lawmakers who played a key role in derailing the original version last month, said they could go along with the compromise.

Millions more Americans got healthcare coverage under Obamacare, but Republicans have long attacked it, seeing it as government overreach and complaining that it drives up costs.

Called the American Health Care Act, the Republican bill would repeal most Obamacare taxes, including a penalty for not buying health insurance. It would slash funding for Medicaid, the program that provides insurance for the poor, and roll back much of Medicaid’s expansion.

The latest effort comes after earlier pushes by Trump collapsed twice, underscoring the difficulty in uniting the various factions of the Republican party.

Earlier this week, prospects for the legislation appeared grim as several influential moderate Republicans said they could not support the bill, citing concerns about people with pre-existing conditions.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Representative Greg Walden of Oregon on Thursday defended the leaders’ plan to vote on the bill without a new Congressional Budget Office analysis of the costs or impact on coverage, factoring in the recent changes.

“Obviously, it’s a work in progress,” Walden, who also met with Trump on Wednesday, said in a separate MSNBC interview.

House Democrats have rejected the latest change to the Republican legislation, saying it did not go far enough toward protecting people with pre-existing conditions.

“Republicans have made Trumpcare even more dangerous and destructive than the last time they brought it to the floor,” Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said to her caucus in a letter late Wednesday night.

Democrats have long thought their best chance of stopping the repeal would be in the Senate, where only a few Republicans would need to defect to stop the law from moving forward.

Republican Meadows told MSNBC he expected the Senate to make changes to the bill that would improve it. The bill would then face a final vote in the House.

With the difficulties in the House, Democrats are optimistic Republicans will face a backlash from voters and could lose seats in the 2018 mid-term elections.

(Additional reporting by David Morgan, Steve Holland, Roberta Rampton, Eric Beech and Susan Heavey; Writing by Ginger Gibson; Editing by Caren Bohan and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Republicans still short of votes to pass U.S. healthcare overhaul

FILE PHOTO: A doctor checks the blood pressure of a patient in downtown Los Angeles, U.S., on July 30, 2007. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo

By Richard Cowan and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives said on Tuesday they were closer to agreeing on a reworked bill to overhaul the nation’s healthcare system but still lacked the votes to pass it, as President Donald Trump pressed lawmakers for a vote.

The White House has been pressuring House Republicans to push ahead with legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, after a first effort failed in March in a major setback for the Trump administration.

“I think it’s time now” for a healthcare vote, Trump told lawmakers at the White House on Tuesday.

But Republican leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, are once again struggling to balance the concerns of moderates, who want to protect Americans with pre-existing medical conditions, with the reluctance of conservatives to make changes.

Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, who heads the staunchly conservative House Freedom Caucus that helped block passage of the first bill, said Republicans were still “a handful of votes away.”

Representative Tom MacArthur of New Jersey, a Republican moderate who brokered a deal that revived the healthcare legislation, said there were still some moderates in the party sitting on the fence.

“It’s close. It’s close. We’re getting there,” MacArthur said.

Lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow states to opt out of Obamacare protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions – provisions that force insurers to charge sick people and healthy people the same rates.

That is seen as a concession to the Freedom Caucus, which has endorsed the new measure. In an interview earlier this week, Trump, however, insisted the new bill would maintain protections for those with pre-existing conditions.

Republicans have long vowed to repeal Democratic former President Barack Obama’s 2010 healthcare restructuring, arguing that the law, which allowed some 20 million Americans to gain healthcare insurance, was too intrusive and expensive.

During his 2016 campaign, Trump also vowed to get rid of it.

Republicans, however, remain divided over key provisions of the bill, with some lawmakers expressing worries of a spike in the number of people without coverage, or sharp increases in insurance premiums.

“They’re still talking about possible changes. If they don’t have the votes, then they’ll have to make changes,” Representative Peter King of New York, a Republican moderate, told reporters, indicating he would likely vote for the bill.

But any tack to the center to shore up moderates’ support threatens to spur defections on the Republican right flank.

“They change it one iota, I’m out,” Representative Dave Brat of Virginia, a Freedom Caucus member, told reporters.

OPPOSITION

Adding to the pressure on Republicans is the unified opposition of Democrats, many of whom view the 2010 healthcare law as the defining domestic achievement of Obama’s presidency, as do healthcare advocates.

Ten major patient advocacy groups, including the American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association, have said they opposed the reworked healthcare bill.

Other major medical groups such as the American Medical Association have also expressed concerns over coverage losses and unaffordable insurance for those with pre-existing conditions.

If a plan passes the House, it is expected to face a tough fight in the Senate, where Republicans have a narrower majority and where some party senators have expressed misgivings about the House bill.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, David Morgan, Steve Holland and Doina Chiacu; Writing by Paul Simao; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Congress passes short-term bill to avert government shutdown

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) (R) attends a news conference on President Trump's first 100 days on Capitol Hill, next to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in Washington, U.S April 28, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress on Friday passed stopgap legislation to avert a government shutdown at midnight and give lawmakers another week to reach a deal on federal spending through the end of the fiscal year, with contentious issues remaining to be resolved.

The Senate passed the measure by voice vote without opposition after the House earlier approved it by a tally of 382-30. The measure now goes to President Donald Trump to sign into law.

The bill in the Republican-led Congress provides federal funding until May 5, allowing lawmakers to hammer out legislation over the next few days to keep the government funded for the rest of the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.

Congress has been tied in knots over $1 trillion in spending priorities for months. Lawmakers were supposed to have taken care of the current fiscal year appropriations bills by last Oct. 1.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the stopgap bill “will carry us through next week so that a bipartisan agreement can be reached.”

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said there were still significant differences with Republicans over elements of the looming longer-term spending bill.

In the bigger spending bill to be negotiated in the coming days, it remained unclear whether Republicans would prevail in their effort to sharply boost defense spending without similar increases for other domestic programs. Trump has proposed a $30 billion spending hike for the Pentagon for the rest of this fiscal year.

House and Senate negotiators also have been struggling over funding to make a healthcare program for coal miners permanent and whether to plug a gap in Puerto Rico’s Medicaid program, the government health insurance program for the poor.

‘IMPORTANT BUSINESS’

During debate in the House, lawmakers expressed frustration at the inability of Congress to take care of the basic functions of government in a timely manner.

“Let’s make sure these basics are done for the American people and then let’s get about the important business of changing their tax code and making sure they have the best healthcare in the world,” said Republican Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma.

“We are seven months into the fiscal year,” added Representative Nita Lowey of New York, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. “Federal departments and agencies have been operating on outdated funding levels and policies for more than half of the year. This is unacceptable and it cannot continue.”

Lowey noted the legislation, known as a continuing resolution, was the third stopgap spending measure during the current fiscal year.

In addition to opposition from Democrats, there are deep divisions among Republicans over exactly how to change the tax code and overhaul the U.S. healthcare system.

The action on the spending bill came a day after House Republican leaders again put on hold a possible vote on major healthcare legislation sought by Trump to dismantle the 2010 Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare, after moderates in the party balked at provisions added to entice hard-line conservatives.

The government was last forced to close in October 2013, when Republican Senator Ted Cruz and some of the most conservative House Republicans engineered a 17-day shutdown in an unsuccessful quest to kill former Democratic President Barack Obama’s healthcare law.

Trump, a Republican, bowed to Democratic demands that the spending bill not include money to start building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border he said is needed to fight illegal immigration and stop drug smugglers.

The Trump administration also agreed to continue funding for a major component of Obamacare despite Republican vows to end the program.

Without the extension or a longer-term funding bill, federal agencies would have run out of money by midnight Friday, likely triggering abrupt layoffs of hundreds of thousands of federal government workers until funding resumes.

(Additional reporting by Amanda Becker and Susan Cornwell; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Jonathan Oatis)

Trump tax plan slashing business rates to test support in Congress

President Trump waves as he boards Air Force One. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Amanda Becker

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will release a tax plan on Wednesday proposing some deep rate cuts, mostly for businesses, including a slashed corporate income tax rate and steeply discounted tax rate for overseas corporate profits brought into the United States, officials said.

Trump intends for his broad blueprint, which will fall short of the kind of comprehensive tax reform that Republicans have long discussed, to be a guidepost for lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.

“We’re driving this a little bit more,” a senior White House official told a group of reporters late on Tuesday.

The plan is not expected by analysts to include any proposals for raising new revenue, potentially adding billions of dollars to the federal deficit.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has been leading the Trump administration’s effort to craft a tax package that can win support in Congress.

Though the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are both controlled by the Republican Party, some aspects of Trump’s proposals could be a difficult sell, including to some fiscal hawks in his own party. Trump’s plan will cut the income tax rate paid by public corporations to 15 percent from 35 percent and sharply cut the top tax rate by pass-through businesses, including many small business partnerships and sole proprietorships, to 15 percent from 39.6 percent, an official said.

Trump will also propose a repatriation tax on offshore earnings along the lines of his campaign proposal for a 10 percent levy, versus the 35 percent due on repatriated foreign profits under present law, the official said.

Trump’s proposal will not include a controversial “border-adjustment” tax on imports that was in earlier proposals floated by House Republicans as a way to offset revenue losses resulting from tax cuts.

Mnuchin has said the cuts will pay for themselves by generating more economic growth, but fiscal hawks, potentially some in Trump’s own Republican Party, along with Democrats are certain to question these claims.

Whether Trump will include provisions that could attract Democratic votes, such as a proposal to fund infrastructure spending or a child-care tax credit as proposed by his daughter Ivanka, is still the subject of speculation.

The senior white house official said Trump would like to see Congress pass tax reform by the middle of autumn.

The last overhaul of the U.S. tax code was in 1986 during the administration of former President Ronald Reagan, a Republican.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Congress moves closer to deal to avert government shutdown

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump's overview of the budget priorities for Fiscal Year 2018 are displayed at the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) on its release by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in Washington, U.S. on March 16, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

By Eric Beech and Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress was moving closer to crafting a deal to avoid shutting down at the stroke of midnight on Friday, but the details and even broad strokes of an agreement were still murky.

Some lawmakers are optimistic they can hammer out a budget bill to take the government to the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30, while others see Congress putting a short-term spending resolution in place for a week, while talks continue.

Either way, the pressure is mounting to come up with a plan before Friday night. If lawmakers do not have one, funding for many federal agencies will abruptly stop and millions of government workers will be temporarily laid off.

Many policy makers are nervous about a repeat of 2013, when the government was shuttered for 17 days.

On Monday President Donald Trump eased up on demands to include funding for a southern border wall in any budget pact, clearing a major obstacle in the negotiations.

White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told CNN late on Tuesday that the Trump administration had also informed Democrats on Monday it would move discussions on building a border wall to September, when the government must negotiate the budget for its next fiscal year.

“And we thought that was going to get a deal done and we’ve not heard anything from them today,” he said. “So I’m not sure what’s happening.”

Even though Trump’s fellow Republicans control both chambers of Congress, they only have 52 seats in the Senate. To amass the 60 votes needed there to pass the budget, Republicans will have to bring Democratic lawmakers onto their side.

The most powerful Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, said on Tuesday his party is concerned about the ratio of increase in defense and non-defense spending. Democrats prefer a one-to-one ratio, and boosting both sides of the budget equally could become a sticking point in negotiations.

Democrats also want provisions for more healthcare coverage for coal miners and appropriations for healthcare subsidies. Health insurance would abruptly become unaffordable for 6 million Americans who rely on cost-sharing subsidies under the national health plan commonly called Obamacare.

Democrats have been seeking immediate assistance for a funding gap in Puerto Rico’s Medicaid program, federal health insurance for the poor, saying it is in such bad shape that 1 million people are set to lose healthcare.

Mulvaney also said Trump would not agree to including Obamacare subsidies in a spending bill.

He told CNN that Democrats “raised Puerto Rico for the first time a couple of days ago,” but did not give Trump’s stance on the Medicaid assistance.

Outside political pressure groups are watching for which “riders” may be added to any deal that emerges this week.

Spending resolutions primarily lay out how government money can flow, but often also include riders, smaller measures attached to the budget so they can become law.

Past riders have touched on areas such as banning the Securities and Exchange Commission from requiring corporations to disclose political donations.

Democrats said they were worried Republicans could try to attach language limiting family-planning funds, and Schumer expressed concerns about attempts to undo Wall Street reforms enacted after the 2007-09 financial crisis.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Lisa Lambert; Writing by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Trump-backed Navy expansion would boost costs some $400 billion over 30 years: study

FILE PHOTO - Sailors man the rails of the USS Carl Vinson, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, as it departs its home port in San Diego, California August 22, 2014. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Expanding the U.S. Navy to 355 ships as recommended by military leaders and backed by President Donald Trump would cost some $400 billion more over the next 30 years than the currently planned 308-ship fleet, according to a study released on Monday.

The annual cost to build, crew and operate a 355-ship fleet would be about $102 billion, or 13 percent more than the $90 billion needed for the currently planned Navy, according to the study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The $102 billion cost of the 355-ship fleet is 33 percent more than Congress appropriated in 2016 for the current 275-ship Navy, the CBO said.

To achieve the larger force, the Navy would need $26.6 billion annually for ship construction, which is 60 percent more than the average amount that Congress has appropriated for shipbuilding in the past 30 years, the CBO study said.

The Navy’s 2017 shipbuilding plan called for boosting the size of the fleet to 308 ships, which was expected to cost $21.2 billion per year to implement over 30 years.

With Trump pressing for an expansion of the fleet to 350 ships during the presidential campaign last year, the Navy released a new force structure assessment in December seeking a 355-ship Navy.

Taking into consideration older ships being retired, creating a 355-ship fleet would require the Navy to buy about 329 new ships over 30 years, compared with 254 under its previous plan for a 308-ship fleet, the CBO study found. The Navy would have to buy about 12 ships per year under the larger fleet plan, versus about eight per year under the earlier plan.

The larger fleet would require more civilian and uniformed personnel and more aircraft, pushing up overall operating costs, the CBO said.

The increase in shipbuilding would force all seven U.S. shipyards to expand their work forces and improve their infrastructure in order to meet the demand for vessels, the CBO said. The greatest challenge would be building submarines to meet the force structure requirements, the report said.

The study said the earliest the Navy could achieve a 355-ship fleet would be the year 2035, or 18 years from now.

(Reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Bill Trott)

U.S. military leaders say budget woes will impact readiness

U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, left, stands with China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) Gen. Li Zuocheng, right, during a welcome ceremony at the Bayi Building in Beijing, Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2016. REUTERS/Mark Schiefelbein/Pool

By Mike Stone

(Reuters) – U.S. military leaders told a congressional committee on Wednesday that their ability to prepare to counter adversaries such as Russia and China will be impaired if Congress does not provide certainty about their budgets.

U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley showed his frustration following years of uncertainty by telling the House Armed Services Committee he would consider it “professional malpractice” if Congress fails to pass a budget.

Milley was among the four heads of the U.S. military services testifying to the committee on the potential impact of a continuing resolution, a stopgap funding measure Congress could extend if it does not pass the 2017 budget by the end of April.

Current Defense Department funding is set to expire on April 28. If a budget bill is approved, it would allow the military its traditional authority to start new programs and distribute money with relative autonomy.

President Donald Trump has proposed a $30 billion defense budget supplement which would take the base Pentagon budget for fiscal 2017 to $541 billion.

Milley said the Army’s basic training would stop by summer if Congress does not pass a budget and enters a full-year continuing resolution.

The Air Force’s General David Goldfein said units not actively preparing to go into conflicts could be grounded this summer.

For the Navy, a full-year continuing resolution would delay funding needed to complete delivery of several ships and prevent it from buying numerous new ships, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson said, without specifying which ships.

The commandant of the Marine Corps, General Robert Neller,‎ said construction would be delayed on specialized amphibious warships that Marines use during operations.

In December, Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. won a contract to design and build the USS Fort Lauderdale, an amphibious transport dock ship that would be used by the Marines.

Just before testimony began on Capitol Hill, an Air Force F-16 fighter jet crashed during a training mission just six miles (10 km) southwest of Washington’s Joint Base Andrews. The pilot ejected and suffered non-life-threatening injuries, the military said.

The crash was brought up by Goldfein as he expressed relief that the pilot was alright, but later during a discussion about the time and expense it takes to maintain the Air Force’s fleet of aircraft, which are on average 27 years old.

(Reporting by Mike Stone; Editing by Bill Trott)

House speaker tells Trump healthcare bill lacks votes: CNN

U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Representative Greg Walden (R-OR) (center L, at table) and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Representative Kevin Brady (R-TX) (center R, at table) testify at an early-morning Rules Committee hearing as Congress considers health care legislation to repeal Obamacare at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., March 24, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Richard Cowan and Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans in Congress said they lacked the votes needed for passage of their U.S. healthcare system overhaul and a key committee chairman came out in opposition after Donald Trump demanded a vote on Friday in a gamble that could hobble his presidency.

Amid a chaotic scramble for votes, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who has championed the bill, met with Trump at the White House. Ryan told the president there were not enough votes to pass the plan, U.S. media reported.

The showdown on the House floor follows Trump’s decision to cut off negotiations to shore up support inside his own party, with moderates and the most conservative lawmakers balking. On Thursday night he had issued an ultimatum that lawmakers pass the legislation that has his backing or keep in place the Obamacare law that Republicans have sought to dismantle since it was enacted seven years ago.

“We’ll see what happens,” Trump said at the White House, adding that Ryan should keep his job regardless of the outcome.

The White House said the vote was set for about 3:30 p.m. (1930 GMT) on Friday on the bill to replace Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement, the 2010 Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare.

“There’s nobody that objectively can look at this effort and say the president didn’t do every single thing he possibly could with this team to get every vote possible,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters.

Republicans control Congress and the White House but have deep divisions over the first major legislative test since Trump became president on Jan. 20.

In a blow to the bill’s prospects, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen announced his opposition, expressing concern about reductions in coverage under the Medicaid insurance program for the poor and the retraction of “essential” health benefits that insurers must cover.

“We need to get this right for all Americans,” Frelinghuysen said.

Representative Rodney Davis, a member of the House Republican team trying to win passage, said the bill was short of the needed votes, and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney added it was unclear if enough support was present.

Vice President Mike Pence, a former House member and influential among Republican lawmakers, postponed a planned trip to Arkansas and Tennessee to help secure passage.

“I’m still optimistic,” Spicer said. “I feel like we’re continuing to work hard. But at the end of the day you can’t force somebody to do something.”

Trump and House Republican leaders cannot afford to lose many votes in their own party because Democrats are unified in opposition, saying the bill would take away medical insurance from millions of Americans and leave the more-than-$3 trillion U.S. healthcare system in disarray.

Republican supporters said the plan would achieve their goal of rolling back the government’s “nanny state” role in healthcare.

FOREHEAD TATTOO

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said, “What’s happening today is a lose-lose situation for the Republicans. It’s a lose-lose for the American people, that’s for sure. But the people who vote for this will have this vote tattooed to their foreheads as they go forward.”

Failure of the measure would call into question Trump’s ability to get other key parts of his agenda, including tax cuts and a boost in infrastructure spending, through a Congress controlled by his own party.

“If it doesn’t pass, this issue is dead,” Republican Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, a bill supporter, said of Republican healthcare legislation. “This is the one shot.”

Even if the legislation passes in the House, it faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where Republicans have expressed misgivings.

Healthcare was the first major test of how Trump, a real estate magnate who touted his deal-making prowess in the 2016 presidential campaign, would work with Congress. Days of negotiations led to some changes in the bill but failed to produce a consensus deal.

U.S. stocks were mixed on Friday in early afternoon trading, having pared earlier gains, while U.S. treasuries were mostly higher.

Leading Republicans had taken to the House floor to make their case to pass the bill and implored conservatives to seize the opportunity to make good on the party’s long promise to get rid of Obamacare.

‘ONLY OUR FIRST STEP’

“Today we are faced with a stark choice,” said Republican Diane Black, who heads the Budget Committee. “While no legislation is perfect, this bill does accomplish some important reforms.”

Black called the bill “only our first step.”

Trump added on Twitter, “This is finally your chance for a great plan!”

Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a breast cancer survivor, called the bill “an immoral piece of legislation” that would gut medical coverage and patient protections.

A Quinnipiac University poll released on Thursday found 56 percent of U.S. voters opposed the House bill, with only 17 percent supporting it. Quinnipiac said its poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Replacing Obama’s signature health care plan was a key campaign pledge for Trump and Republicans, who view it as overly intrusive and expensive.

Obamacare boosted the number of Americans with health insurance through mandates on individuals and employers, and income-based subsidies. About 20 million Americans gained insurance coverage through the law.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said under the Republican legislation 14 million people would lose medical coverage by next year and more than 24 million would be uninsured in 2026.

The House plan would rescind a range of taxes created by Obamacare, end a penalty on people who refuse to obtain health insurance, end Obamacare’s income-based subsidies to help people buy insurance while creating less-generous age-based tax credits

It also would end Obamacare’s expansion of the Medicaid state-federal insurance program for the poor, cut future federal Medicaid funding and let states impose work requirements on some Medicaid recipients.

House leaders agreed to a series of last-minute changes to try to win over disgruntled conservatives, including ending the Obamacare requirement that insurers cover certain “essential benefits” such as maternity care, mental health services and prescription drug coverage.

The House and Senate had hoped to deliver a new healthcare bill to Trump by April 8, when Congress is scheduled to begin a two-week spring break.

Click on the links below for related graphics:

Graphic on Obamacare and Republican healthcare bill (http://tmsnrt.rs/2n0ZMKf)

Graphic on shifting positions in the U.S. Senate on Republican healthcare bill (http://tmsnrt.rs/2mUE4Xf)

Graphic on poll on Americans’ views of the Republican healthcare bill (http://tmsnrt.rs/2n7f3e4)

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Susan Cornwell, Jeff Mason, David Morgan, David Lawder, Amanda Becker, and Doina Chiacu; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Bill Trott)