GOP looking for budget deal:

America

McConnell

Pushing toward the Republicans’ prime goal of tax legislation, the GOP Senate leader and members of the Budget Committee are scrambling to come up with a budget deal to clear the way for the first tax overhaul in three decades.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and GOP members of the Budget Committee were meeting Tuesday with two top Trump administration officials to plot breaking the budget stalemate.

Lack of a budget plan for the 2018 fiscal year starting Oct 1 is a roadblock to the must-do legislation overhauling the tax system that Republicans and President Donald Trump have made their highest priority. Trump’s top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are meeting with McConnell and budget panel members.

Underscoring the president’s desire for tax legislation, Trump was hosting a bipartisan group of senators for dinner at the White House on Tuesday, including a trio of moderate Democrats from states Trump won last November and whose votes he’d like to have on a tax bill.

Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana are to be joined at dinner by Republican Sens. John Thune of North Dakota, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Orrin Hatch of Utah, the White House said. (AP)