Mar 28, 2017 - Politics & Policy

Flashback: McConnell on tax reform and infrastructure

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

The Trump administration is looking at concurrently tackling tax reform and infrastructure, as Axios' Jonathan Swan scooped last night. Back in January, National Journal Alex Rogers asked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell what he thought about tying the two together. Quotables:

  • "I'm not interested in doing anything like the stimulus... It's like withdrawing the funds from the bank and lighting a match to it and adding that much to the deficit."
  • "Whatever we do needs to be credibly paid for... the way transportation projects really, actually occur is at the state level. They're the ones who build roads, repair roads and actually spend the gas-tax money..."
  • McConnell's questions: What is the administration going to recommend? How big is it? How do we pay for it? How is it going to be structured?

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Maria Arias
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"I stood up for that": Pope Francis voices support for same-sex civil unions

Pope Francis at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. Photo: Vatican Pool - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

Pope Francis voiced his support for same-sex civil unions for the first time as pope in the documentary “Francesco,” which premiered Wednesday at the Rome Film Festival, per the Catholic News Agency.

Why it matters: The pope’s remarks represent a break from the position of the Roman Catholic Church, which has long taught that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered" and contrary to natural law.

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Barak Ravid, author of from Tel Aviv
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Countries waiting to see if Trump wins before moving on Israel normalization

The delegation lands at Israel's Ben Gurion airport. Photo: Jack Guez/AFP via Getty

The White House is attempting to leverage momentum from Israel's normalization deals with Bahrain and the UAE to get more Arab countries on board before the U.S. election.

Driving the news: President Trump wants Sudan's removal from the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list to be accompanied by a pre-election announcement on Israel.

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Orion Rummler
2 hours ago - Politics & Policy

Poll: 92% of battleground state voters are "extremely motivated to vote"

Voters stand in line at the Metropolitan Multi-Services Center in Houston, Texas, on Oct. 13. Photo: Mark Felix for The Washington Post via Getty Images

91% of likely voters nationally say they are "extremely motivated to vote," including 92% in battleground states Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to a Change Research/CNBC Poll.

Why it matters: The 2020 election could see record-breaking levels of voter turnout. Voters last week cast ballots at nearly five times the rate they did at this point in the 2016 election, per the U.S. Elections Project. Over 39 million ballots have been cast in early voting states as of Wednesday.

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