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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and members of his administration on Sunday goaded Republican senators to stick with trying to pass a healthcare bill, after the lawmakers failed spectacularly last week to muster the votes to end Obamacare.

For the second day running, the Republican president tweeted his impatience with Congress' inability to deliver on his party's seven-year promise to replace the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama's signature healthcare bill commonly known as Obamacare. Members of his administration took to the airwaves to try to compel lawmakers to take action.

But it was unclear whether the White House admonishments would have any impact on Capitol Hill, where Republicans who control both houses signaled last week that it was time to move on to other issues.

Republicans' zeal to repeal and replace Obamacare was met with both intra-party divisions between moderates and conservatives and also the increasing approval of a law that raised the number of insured Americans by 20 million.

Polling indicates a majority of Americans are ready to move on from healthcare at this point. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Saturday, 64 percent of 1,136 people surveyed on Friday and Saturday said they wanted to keep Obamacare, either "entirely as is" or after fixing "problem areas." That is up from 54 percent in January.

With the U.S. legislative branch spinning its wheels, the executive branch pledged to look at rewriting Obamacare regulations. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price told ABC's "This Week" that he would change those regulations that drive up costs or "hurt" patients.

Price sidestepped questions about whether there were administration plans to waive Obamacare's mandate that individuals have health insurance, saying "all things are on the table to try to help patients."

But Price also told NBC he would implement Obamacare because it is the "law of the land."

That Obamacare was still law clearly angered Trump, who has no major legislative accomplishments to show for his first half-year in office. "Don't give up Republican Senators, the World is watching: Repeal & Replace ..." the president said in a tweet on Sunday morning.

On Friday, Senate Republicans failed to collect enough votes to repeal even a few parts of Obamacare. That capped a week of failed Senate votes on whether to simply repeal, or repeal and replace, the 2010 law, while Trump repeatedly berated lawmakers in a late attempt to influence the legislation.

"The president will not accept those who said, quote, 'its time to move on,'" Kellyanne Conway, a senior counselor to Trump, said on Fox News Sunday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, had made exactly that comment before dawn on Friday morning after the failed healthcare vote.

The White House budget director, Mick Mulvaney, said on Sunday lawmakers should stay in session to get something done on healthcare - even if this means postponing votes on other issues such as raising the debt ceiling.

"So yes. They need to stay. They need to work. They need to pass something," Mulvaney said on CNN.

The House of Representatives has already gone home for its August break and the Senate is expected to do the same by mid-August.

Mulvaney also said Trump was seriously considering carrying out threats he tweeted about on Saturday, when the president said that "if a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!"

That tweet appeared to be referring to the approximately $8 billion in cost-sharing reduction subsidies the federal government pays to insurers to lower the price of health coverage for low-income Americans.

The Saturday tweet also appeared to be a threat to end the employer contribution for members of Congress and their staffs, who were moved from the normal federal employee healthcare benefits program onto the Obamacare insurance exchanges as part of the 2010 healthcare law.

"What hes saying is, look, if Obamacare is hurting the American people and it is then why shouldnt it hurt insurance companies and more importantly, perhaps for this discussion, members of Congress?" Mulvaney said on Sunday on CNN.

Some Republicans have said they are trying to find a way forward on healthcare. Senate Republican Susan Collins, one of three Republicans who voted against repealing parts of Obamacare on Friday, told NBC that Congress should produce a series of bills with bipartisan input on healthcare, including appropriating the cost-sharing subsidies.

The Senate has one vote scheduled when it reconvenes on Monday afternoon: whether to confirm a U.S. circuit court judge. Senate aides said they had no guidance for the agenda beyond that vote.

Additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch, Roberta Rampton, and Caren Bohan; Editing by Phil Berlowitz and Mary Milliken

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Trump tells Republicans to get back on healthcare bill - Reuters

New York Times

Party in peril? Republicans reel after Obamacare failure Sacramento Bee Republicans have controlled this town for seven months. They have virtually nothing to show for it. Returning home this week to face voters for the first time since the party failed to get an Obamacare repeal through a Senate where it had a majority ... On Health, Republicans Find They Cannot Beat Something With NothingNew York Times The Republicans Are Not Going to Compromise on Health CareSlate Magazine Republicans' failure to 'repeal and replace' Obamacare may cost them at the ballot boxWashington Post Fox News -Washington Examiner -Politico all 7,744 news articles »

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Party in peril? Republicans reel after Obamacare failure - Sacramento Bee

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans on Sunday urged President Donald Trump's new chief of staff John Kelly to rein in the chaos within the White House on Monday but said the retired Marine Corps general will be challenged to assert control.

In his first six months in office, Trump has upended White House convention with a loose decision-making style and an open-door policy to his Oval Office for advisers, both internal and external. Infighting among his senior staff has become bitter and public.

"He's going to have to reduce the drama, reduce both the sniping within and reduce the leaks, and bring some discipline to the relationships," Karl Rove, a Republican strategist and former White House adviser to George W. Bush, said on "Fox News Sunday."

Trump announced Kelly would replace his embattled chief of staff Reince Priebus at the end of a particularly chaotic week that saw his first legislative effort - healthcare reform - fail in Congress.

"He (Trump) is in a lot of trouble. This week was the most tumultuous week weve seen in a tumultuous presidency," Rove said.

On top of the healthcare debacle, Trump came under fire for banning transgender people from the military, and was pilloried for politicizing a speech he made to the Boy Scouts.

Adding fuel to the fire, his new communications director Anthony Scaramucci unleashed a string of profane criticism about Priebus and Trump strategist Steven Bannon to a New Yorker magazine reporter.

Republicans welcomed Trump's decision to bring in Kelly, who starts on Monday.

"I think he will bring some order and discipline to the West Wing," said Republican Senator Susan Collins and Trump critic on NBC's "Meet the Press."

The last week heightened concerns in Trump's party that the distractions and West Wing dysfunction would derail other legislative priorities, including tax reform and debt ceiling negotiations.

White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said he thought Priebus had been effective "but was probably a little bit more laid back in the way he ran the office.

"I think the president wants to go in a different direction, wants a little bit more discipline, a little more structure in there," said Mulvaney, who reports to the chief of staff.

It is not yet clear whether all of Trump's senior staff will answer to Kelly. Some members, including Scaramucci and senior counselor Kellyanne Conway, report directly to Trump, a structure which gives them more power.

"I will do whatever the president and our new chief of staff General Kelly ask me to do," Conway told Fox News' "Fox News Sunday."

Kelly should be empowered to be the gatekeeper to the Oval Office, said Mike Huckabee, the former Republican governor of Arkansas, whose daughter Sarah Sanders is Trump's spokeswoman.

"That's what needs to happen, but that's going to be up to the president," Huckabee said on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures."

"The president has a very different style, he's very open, the door is open, he invites people to just come on it to a meeting," Huckabee said.

To be effective, Kelly needs to find a way to work within Trump's untraditional style, said Corey Lewandowski, who was a former campaign manager to Trump, and remains close to the president.

"The thing that General Kelly should do is not try to change Donald Trump," Lewandowski said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"Anybody who thinks they're going to change Donald Trump doesn't know Donald Trump," Lewandowski said.

Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell, Sarah N. Lynch, and Caren Bohan; Editing by Mary Milliken

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Republicans call on new Trump chief of staff to fix White House chaos - Reuters

In this Aug. 17, 2016, file photo, Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen takes part in a debate in Minnetonka, Minn.

By Maya Rao , Star Tribune July 30, 2017 - 9:25 PM

WASHINGTON Republican lawmakers are heading back to their home districts for the August break to promote plans to reshape the federal tax code, fresh off the collapse of their partys efforts to overhaul the health care system.

Legislators hope the GOP can rally and pull together better than it did on the push to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

I think its obvious that there were some lessons learned from health care, said U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen, a Republican from Eden Prairie who voted for the health care bill in the House. Its not good to have competing versions. You dont need to have artificial deadlines to pass bills. Its better to get the policy right.

Both Paulsen and fellow Republican U.S. Rep. Jason Lewis of Woodbury sit on key House committees involved in two huge and connected Republican priorities: the tax code rewrite and a budget resolution that would enable a procedural tool permitting the tax plan to pass Congress without Democratic votes. But the budget resolution is still awaiting passage by the full House, where it faces resistance from the conservative Freedom Caucus.

Its time for the grown-ups in the room to stand up and get the job done, said Lewis.

The unpredictability and frequent chaos that have come to characterize the Trump administration have dogged Republicans as they try to enact a governing agenda after voters handed them the reins of Washington power in the last election. The pressure to act intensified Thursday, when the Big Six group of Republican leaders announced they were united in their drive to fix the tax code and charged the House and Senate tax-writing committees with passing the necessary legislation this fall.

Getting our work done

Minnesota has beautiful summers and really cold winters, but no matter the weather, we get up every day and head to our jobs with the expectation of getting our work done, said U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, a Democrat from St. Paul, during the partys weekly address on Capitol Hill. Thats exactly the opposite of whats happening right now in Republican-controlled Washington.

She added that she agreed with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., when he told the upper chamber, We are getting nothing done.

One of the Big Six negotiators is Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, who is pushing Republicans to tout tax reform in events with their constituents in coming weeks. Brady is chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and lives with Paulsen, a member of the panel, in Washington. Hes talking up the number 31, in a reference to the number of days in August and the number of years since the last major overhaul of the tax code.

Every day were going to have a message about why its important to have tax reform, Paulsen said.

He plans to visit businesses and hold roundtable discussions on taxes, health care and trade during the recess. He wants lower tax rates for businesses of all sizes and to make it quicker and easier for people to file their taxes. He also wants to incentivize companies to keep their headquarters in the United States and to offer companies more long-term certainty about their tax liabilities.

Paulsen is even trying to persuade Brady to visit Minnesota at some point.

The statement by the Big Six last week confirmed that the border-adjustment tax proposal was dead, though it was otherwise short on specifics. Republicans want to grow the economy by 3 percent a year.

Brady has been adamant that legislators cant reshape taxes without the passage of the budget bill, which unlocks a legislative tool called reconciliation that would allow the tax bill to pass Congress with limited debate and a simple majority, rather than a 60 percent supermajority. Republicans only control the upper chamber by a 52-48 margin.

Our argument has been without budget reconciliation, you dont have tax reform. Its really important to keep engaging in bipartisan conversation and also recognize at the end of the day that we have to use every tool we can to get across the finish line, Paulsen said.

He added: We have some in our conference who are not used to governing or who have always been in the opposition only, so theres a little resistance.

This month, the House Budget Committee that Lewis sits on passed a budget resolution along party lines that calls for $621 billion in military spending and $511 billion in nondefense spending. The nonbinding measure calls for cutting tax rates and moving to a system in which only corporations domestic income is taxed. It reduces the deficit by $6.5 trillion over the next 10 years.

It also seeks $203 billion in reductions over the next decade for mandatory spending for programs such as Social Security and Medicaid. But some conservatives want even deeper cuts.

I think every single member on the House Budget Committee on the majority side were just pushing hard to get it passed, Lewis said.

He added: I just think were beyond the stage of Democrats going to Washington and cutting Republican programs and Republicans going to Washington and cutting Democratic programs. Weve got to have real, shared sacrifice.

A nod to progress

Both Paulsen and Lewis maintain that despite the broader perception of dysfunction in Washington, the House has productively moved through its agenda. But several key measures havent gained traction in the Senate, from health care to a rollback of banking regulations under the Dodd-Frank Act passed in 2010 in response to the financial crisis.

I dont think the Senate has moved fast enough on all this stuff. If the Senate doesnt do their job, then yeah, it doesnt look like were getting that much done, Lewis said.

On Friday, during an interview on Fox Business, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., described tax reform as having more consensus than health care.

It is more important for us than anything that we get tax reform done because we think it is absolutely critical for strong economic growth, he said.

Maya Rao 202-662-7433

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Reeling Republicans regroup to focus on taxes - Minneapolis Star Tribune

After their health care bill collapsed in spectacular fashion last week, Republican congressional leaders insist they wont make the same mistakes with tax reform, the other big-ticket promise they made to voters, and to which they will turn next.

But there are enough similarities between the two issues that lawmakers are worried.

Republicans go into the debate with only vague principles, have struggled to pique Democrats interest and have received conflicting signals from the White House about priorities.

Still searching for their first major legislative win under President Trump, Republican leaders said they have to surmount those problems and deliver reform.

We looked at health care and said, Lets make sure we do tax reform better and differently, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, said in an interview that aired Sunday on Fox News.

He joined other top Republicans on Capitol Hill, as well as the Treasury secretary and White House economic adviser, to release a broad set of goals and a vague timeline for tax reform and promised to put legislation through committees in the fall.

Mr. Ryan and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, Texas Republican, also abandoned their push for a $1 trillion tax on imports.

But some members of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee said dropping the border adjustment raises questions about how to make up an estimated $1 trillion in revenue that Republicans were going to use to pay for lowering other rates.

As Ive always said, without border adjustment youre going to have a lot higher rates, and I think it makes it complicated to solve the overseas issues, said Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican and a Ways and Means Committee member.

Republicans were also counting on repealing Obamacare first, including erasing $1 trillion in taxes on items such as investment income to pay for the law.

Axing those taxes, as part of a bill that lowered the overall deficit, would significantly lower the federal budget baseline and give leaders more wiggle room on the ultimate cost of their tax package.

That option is no longer viable because of the failure of the health care legislation last week.

If the representations we got earlier in the year are true that you cannot have tax reform without health care reform, then it gets harder, said Rep. Mo Brooks, Alabama Republican.

Mr. Brady said Congress could try to repeal Obamacare levies as part of the tax code overhaul, but that would disrupt what is already a tightrope walk.

I want those $1 trillion of taxes out of the economy thats what that repeal bill is designed to do, Mr. Brady said. We cant afford to import those into tax reform [because] the result would be higher tax rates for more families and local businesses.

Under fast-track budget rules, Republicans can pass a broad tax code overhaul with a simple majority in the House and Senate, bypassing a Democratic filibuster, as long as it doesnt add to the deficit in the long run.

But a revenue-neutral bill almost certainly means a much more limited set of reforms.

Rep. James B. Renacci, Ohio Republican and another Ways and Means Committee member, said he hasnt given up hope for a big deal, even without the extra room that could have been bought with the border adjustment tax or Obamacare repeal.

I think we need to come up with something where we [can] get enough votes to pass it and move it forward even if that means its not revenue-neutral in some cases, he said.

First up for Republicans, however, will be passing a budget so they have a framework for tax reform.

A plan passed the House Budget Committee this month but has stalled as committee Chairman Diane Black searches for support.

We look forward to having continued conversations with Chairman Black on the budget, but there are still not enough votes to pass it, Rep. Mark Meadows, the North Carolina Republican who chairs the influential House Freedom Caucus, said last week.

Lawmakers need a budget vehicle in order to unlock fast-track procedures known as reconciliation, which can avoid a potential Senate filibuster though it also places limits on what can be done legislatively.

Republicans found that out during the Obamacare debate, which was also conducted under reconciliation. Rank-and-file Republicans chafed at having to scratch some ideas because they didnt fit under the strict rules governing budget debates.

Republicans also have spent essentially half the year trying to pass health care reform, adding pressure to deliver a legislative win and have something they can take back to voters for the midterm elections next year.

Were just going straight ahead, Mr. Brady said. Despite the setback, the letdown on health care, I think people are awfully excited about being able to unify behind this in August and through the fall.

Democrats have been left out of tax negotiations. Republican leaders saying the two parties cant even agree on goals. Republicans say they want a more competitive code but that Democrats want to use a tax overhaul to soak the rich and increase government revenue.

Republicans are dripping tax ideas out like a leaky faucet with no specifics to back them up, said Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the tax-writing Finance Committee. We need sustainable, comprehensive tax reform, not a massive tax cut for the wealthy.

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Republicans move on to tax reform, but battle looks similar to failed Obamacare repeal - Washington Times