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The Liberals will make their first down payment of up to $600 million on their marquee defence strategy this fall, a Commons committee was told Tuesday.

Deputy Defence Minister John Forester saidcash to put the wheels of the newly-released policy in motion will come through supplementary spending estimates that are always tabled in Parliament as part of routine fiscal business.

Forester, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of the defence staff, faced a series of questions from both Conservative and NDP MPsabout when and how the ambitious program will be funded.

The Liberals have chafed under the fiscal skepticism which greeted the release of the plan on June 7 when critics pointed out that the spring federal budget contained little extra new cash for the military.

That irritation was on full display Tuesday.

Sajjan became his most animated when beating back opposition critiques and pointing to specific funding provisions in the policy, which promises a 70 per cent increase in the overall defence allocation during the next decade.

"The investment starts now," he said.

Under the Liberal plan, the federal government will be spending $32.7 billion on the military by 2026-27, but as NDP MP Randall Garrison pointed out, much of the planned increase in spending does not fully kick in for a couple of years.

"What we see, in the short-term,the money you're proposing will not keep pace with the rate of inflation," he said. "How do you expect the military to keep pace with operations when they have no new real dollars in their budget."

Forester told MPs the money will start flowing in the supplementary estimates.

Since the defence plan had not been announced at the time of the budget, officials were not prepared to put it on the books.

In addition, Forester saidthe department's capacity to be able to spend the cash,through program administration and hiring,has to be ramped up first.

"There is a planned schedule of implementation," said Forester. "It is $600 million in addition to what was already planned in the defence budget."

While the Conservatives were in power, National Defence was routinely unable to spend its budget allocation.

In 2015, defence analyst Dave Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute estimated the department had lapsed as much as $9.7 billion between 2007 and 2014.

The new policy calls for an expansion of the military to 71,000 full-time members and 30,000 part-time,or reservists.

MPs asked how meeting the plan outlined in the newly announced defence policy would be possible without an increase in the federal budget.

But Vance answered that he has,at the moment,the cash to sustain 68,000 members of the regular force and expects the rest will be coming quickly.

"We have sufficient resources to meet the plans and when the [supplementary funding] comes in the fall we will be increasing recruiting," Vance said. "I am actually far more concerned and consumed right now about being able to spend the [current] supply [of money]."

Shortly after the defence policy was released, finance officials told CBC News the plan would nothave a significant impact on future projected deficits.

A senior finance official, speaking on background, said the new spending will lead to some changes to the fiscal outlook, but insisted those changes will be minor.

How it might affect this year's projected deficit remainsunclear.

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Liberals planning $600M down payment on defence strategy - CBC.ca

June 19, 2017, 9:34 a.m.

Olympic legend and longtime Republican Caitlyn Jennerraised eyebrows over the weekend with a joke at the College Republican National Committee convention on Friday.

Though the event was closed to the press, video was posted to Facebook Live by the College Republican Federation of Virginia, whichhassince removed the post.

"Nobody deserves what happened out there," Jenner said of Wednesday's shooting, in whichfour were injured by a gunman said to be targeting GOP lawmakers.

But rather than stop while she was ahead, Jennercontinued commenting on the violence.

"As for the people that were injured, it's an absolute shame," Jenner remarked. "You just want them to recover. Fortunately the guy was a really bad shot ... liberals can't even shoot straight."

The joke got a hearty laugh from the assembled group of college Republicans.

Jenner's humor was less well-received online, where people found the joke to be distasteful and inappropriate.

Representatives for Jenner did not immediately respond to The Times' request for comment Monday morning.

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Caitlyn Jenner on GOP baseball shooting: 'Liberals can't even shoot straight' - Los Angeles Times

Republicans held on in Tuesday's special election in Georgia, securing a big victory in a much-watched race.

Butas I argued Tuesday, it's easy to overstate the significance of a special election in one out of 435 congressional districts especially a unique one that shifted so bigly between the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections.And the totality of special elections this year is still painting an increasingly clear picture: Democrats are over-performing, even if they aren't winning the big ones.

Call it moral victories or whatever you want; it's still a form of clear progress.

It's been true in a strong majority of special elections so far this year (except Georgia), from Kansas to Montana to a lower-profile congressional race Tuesday in South Carolina to a slate of state legislative races.

The good folks over at Daily Kos Elections have been tracking it all and comparing the results of each race to the presidential race in that district in November, where available. And thus far, Democrats have done better than Hillary Clinton in 17 out of 23 races and better than President Obama in 2012 in 16 of 23.

Here's how that looks compared to 2016, courtesy of Daniel Donner:

This is especially notable because (a) Clinton and Obama both won the popular vote and (b) it's not always the case. Over the preceding three years, in fact, Democrats did worse than Clinton in about 73 percent of special elections:

And if you look at that first chart, you'll notice that Republicans only substantially beat the presidential numbers in one out of 23 races a state Senate race in Connecticut while their other overperformances were all pretty close, within 5 points or less of the 2012 presidential race. Democrats, meanwhile, are beating Clinton's numbers by substantial margins in most of these districts.

You may recall the Kansas special election where they lost by just 7 points in a district Clinton lost by 29 a pretty big surprise at the time. But that's actually only in the middle of the pack as far as races where they've overperformed. In five other state legislative races (five of just 23 on this list total), they over-performed Clinton's numbers by even more than that. And they have beaten Clinton's margins by double digits in13 out of 23 races total more than half.

In congressional races, they've beaten Clinton's margins by 21 points in Kansas, 14 points in Montana and 15 points in South Carolina, while underperforming Clinton by two points in Georgia.

A big problemwith the intense focus and spending on special elections is that there are so many unique factors. Not only was Georgia's 6th district the sixth-most Democratic-shifting district in the 2016 presidential election, but we also had unique candidates, a unique election format and a rainstorm on the day of the runoff. All of these things allow for well-meaning people to draw different conclusions about what Karen Handel's win means for the political landscape.

But once you start including more special elections in more districts, those unique variables in each district matter less and we get more of a sense for which side's voters are more enthusiastic and which side is doing a better job of persuasion nationwide. Right now, that's the Democrats.

A big reason they haven't won the big one is that all of the big ones have been fought in conservative territory. They took a big shot Tuesday and lost, but the trend is clear.

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Special elections are still painting a good picture for Democrats, overall - Washington Post

Democratic strength is not surprising, since all of the ingredients for a strong Democratic performance are in place. The presidents party just about always loses seats in the midterm elections, and it generally gets clobbered when the presidents approval rating is beneath 50 percent, much less beneath 40.

But alone, a strong national political environment doesnt guarantee Democratic control of the House.

The Democrats just dont have many top-tier opportunities to win Republican-held seats. This year, just 11 Republicans represent seats with a Democratic tilt in recent presidential elections. Back in 2010, the Republicans had 73 such opportunities.

They dont need to win most of those districts, but they need to win enough.

Lean Rep. (6085% Rep.)

Likely Rep. (8595% Rep.)

Lean Rep. (6085% Rep.)

Likely Rep. (8595% Rep.)

The election in 2006 is a particularly relevant example, because Democrats had a somewhat similar, if better, set of opportunities. Those chances yielded 31 seats, just a few more than the 24 seats they need in 2018. But Democrats also had some good luck in 2006 that will be hard to duplicate: There were a half dozen safely Republican districts where the incumbent succumbed to scandal or indictment, including Tom DeLay, a House majority leader.

The Republicans have a real shot to retain control of the House in a political climate that would doom them under typical circumstances. There are a lot of reasons for this structural G.O.P. advantage, like partisan gerrymandering, the inefficient distribution of Democrats in heavily Democratic cities, and the benefit of incumbency.

To retake the House, Democrats will ultimately need to carry seats with a clear Republican tradition. This years special elections, including Jon Ossoffs loss to Karen Handel in Georgia, are a reminder that it will indeed be difficult for Democrats to win in Republican-leaning districts, just as it was for the Democrats in 2006 or for Republicans on Democratic-leaning turf in 2010.

The good news for Democrats is that they dont need to win all of these Republican-leaning districts or even most of them. Democrats might only need to win, say, 17 of the 60 seats where Republicans are favored, but where Democrats have a realistic chance.

In that sense, these Democratic losses are entirely consistent with the possibility of a House takeover. If Democrats keep running ahead of expectations across those plausibly competitive Republican-held seats, many seats will ultimately fall their way. But they will certainly lose more than they win. The question is whether they win enough, and no special election offers the answer to that.

An earlier version of this article misstated the position of Tom DeLay in the 2006 election cycle. He was a House majority leader, not House Speaker.

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Dueling Realities for Democrats: Big Gains but Large Obstacles in ... - New York Times

Blue Dog Democrats huddled with the leading members of President Trumps economic team on Tuesday in the Capitol, where the lawmakers pressed the administration to seek bipartisan reforms to the nations tortuous tax code.

Just 18-members strong, the centrist Blue Dogs compose a tiny voice in the clamorous House, vastly outnumbered by even the liberals in their own caucus. But with GOP leaders struggling to rally their divided conference around big-ticket legislation, the Blue Dogs see themselves potentially stepping into the mix to broker a bipartisan deal for the sake of getting tax reform to Trumps desk this year.

If its constructive, if theyre genuinely interested in ideas and making it a bipartisan effort, then the Blue Dogs are certainly willing to participate, said Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), a member of the group.

Youve got the far left, youve got the far right, and the Blue Dogs are in the center. And basically, we want a tax code thats efficient [and] that works for everybody.

With that in mind, the Blue Dogs met Tuesday evening with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, White House chief economic advisor Gary Cohn and Marc Short, the president's director of legislative affairs, to press a simple, two-pronged message: First, for tax reform to be sustainable, it must be bipartisan; second, the Blue Dogs are willing to help.

The message is that were willing to participate and give input if, infact,its going to be a bipartisan process that ultimately is going to work for the good of the Republic, Bishop said.

Theyre interested in input because they recognize that it needs to be a bipartisan effort if its going to succeed. And they want it to succeed.

How the Republicans go about the process, however, remains an open question.

GOP leaders in both chambers are hoping to rally their Republican troops behind a tax package that wont require any Democratic votes a message amplified by Speaker Paul RyanPaul RyanThe Memo: Five Takeaways from Georgias special election EXCLUSIVE: Blue Dog Democrats meet with top Trump aides on tax reform Dem who launched bid against Paul Ryan raises 100k in first day of campaign MORE (R-Wis.) on Tuesday.

Once in a generation or so, there is an opportunity to do something transformational something that will have a truly lasting impact long after we are gone, Ryan, a former Ways and Means chairman whos fought for years to rewrite the tax code, said during a speech before the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) in Washington.

That moment is here and we are going to meet it.

Thus far, however, Ryan and the Republicans are divided over the policy specifics of their various tax plans, particularly when it comes to an import tax that Ryan backs but Trump and many other Republicans reject.

Furthermore, going the partisan route will require the Republicans to adopt a 2018 budget bill that includes procedural language, known as reconciliation, that would allow them to move a tax package through the Senate with just a simple majority. That budget bill is on hold while the Republicans attempt to pass their ObamaCare repeal bill, which is slated for a Senate vote next week.

The Blue Dogs are eying the healthcare vote with particular interest because they think it will likely dictate both the tenor of the subsequent tax debate and the extent of their influence over it.

If healthcare reform passes on a party-line vote via reconciliation, they say, there will likely be less appetite for Republicans to reach across the aisle for Democratic votes on tax reform.

If anything, its going to create an incentive for them to continue doing things in the [partisan] way that they have done, said a senior aide close to the Blue Dogs.

If, on the other hand, the Republicans healthcare bill fails to reach Trumps desk, GOP leaders may feel increasing pressure to score a legislative victory on a major issue, and theyll face a heightened urgency to get tax reform across the finish line, even if that means compromising with moderate Democrats to get it done.

If healthcare goes down there arent a lot of places that I can see that the Trump administration doesnt turn on congressional Republicans for not having healthcare passed, and theyre going to want a big win, said a second senior aide aligned with the Blue Dogs.

Its the second scenario where the Blue Dogs think they could step in and work with the Republicans to secure the sweeping tax reforms that have eluded Congress since the Reagan administration.

The Democratic aides said Trump officials favor a bipartisan approach to tax reform that would eliminate the need for reconciliation, but expressed concerns that theyd lack the votes in the Senate, where eight Democrats would have to cross the aisle to defeat a likely filibuster from more liberal senators.

In reality, according to them, they said the political landscape is very toxic and that theyre having a tough time identifying eight Democratic senators who would be on board for something like this, said the first Democratic aide.

The first aide singled out four points on which the Democrats and the White House appear to agree: Any tax reform package must spur economic growth; reduce rates for middle-income workers; broaden the revenue base; and lower corporate rates. The Blue Dogs also stressed to Mnuchin and Cohn that they want the package to be deficit neutral a goal Ryan shares, since adding to the deficit under reconciliation rules would cause new tax cuts to expire after a decade.

"Businesses need to have confidence that we wont pull the rug out from under them," Ryan said.

The Blue Dogs, meanwhile, are vowing to press ahead. Last week, they wrote to tax-reform stakeholders on K Street, urging the groups to oppose a strictly partisan approach to this years debate.

Reforming our tax system must be done in the most responsible and sustainable way and that means it must be bipartisan, Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.), one of three Blue Dog co-chairmen, wrote in the June 15th letter.

The Blue Dogs are also busy drafting a set of tax-reform principles, which they intend to release before the Republicans move to the issue in full.

In a separate meeting on Tuesday, Cohn said the White House expects Congress to launch the tax debate in September, after Congress returns from its long August recess.

Ryan was less ambitious about that timeline, saying his personal goal is to get it done by opening day at gun deer season meaning late November. But his goals for the policy itself remain sky-high.

We are going to fix this nation's tax code once and for all, he said.

The Blue Dog Democrats are hoping to be a part of that process.

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EXCLUSIVE: Blue Dog Democrats meet with top Trump aides on tax reform - The Hill