Got the votes??

Cohn: 'We're convinced we've got the votes' on (Affordable Care Act) Obamacare repeal bill

By LOUIS NELSON

White House National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn said Monday that he and other members of President Donald Trump’s administration are “convinced we’ve got the votes” in Congress to pass legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare this week.

A bill undoing former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare legislation would be a major victory for Trump, made sweeter perhaps because a previous attempt at repeal and replace failed to pass even the Republican-controlled House last March. Such legislation would be a campaign promise kept by Trump just outside of his benchmark 100th day in office.

“Do we have the votes for healthcare? I think we do. This is going be a great week,” Cohn said on “CBS This Morning,” which was broadcast live on Monday from the White House’s East Room. “We're going to get health care down to the floor of the house. We're convinced we've got the votes and we're going to keep moving on with our agenda.”

White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, in his own CBS interview minutes after Cohn, was similarly optimistic although he stopped short of the certainty expressed by Trump's economic adviser. Asked if he expected a healthcare bill in Congress this week, Priebus said "I certainly hope so. I think so. You know, I'm an optimistic person."

Priebus also said that passing a repeal-and-replace package this week would hand Trump "one of the fastest pieces of signature legislation to go through for a president since" Franklin Delano Roosevelt's ambitious depression-fighting agenda in the 1930s. The White House chief of staff said that Obama is too often praised for signing an economic stimulus package in his administration's opening weeks when in reality, that bill had been "pre-baked" before Obama was even elected.

After tabling repeal-and-replace legislation after its embarrassing defeat earlier this spring, the White House pushed furiously last week to pressure Congressional Republicans to bring up the bill again and hold a vote before Trump’s 100th day in office. With an agenda already packed by negotiations on a must-pass funding bill to keep the government open, Congress did not accede to the White House’s request, but addressing healthcare remains a top priority at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Cohn also talked up the president’s proposal to reform the nation’s tax code, the broad strokes of which were released in a one-page document last week even though the White House has said the plan’s details will be hammered out in negotiations with Congress. Cohn told the CBS panel of anchors that the White House believes the bill could prove to be revenue neutral despite reductions in tax rates because it would also remove a significant number of deductions.

“As you said, we just rolled out our tax plan last week. We're very excited about our tax plan as well,” he said. “So we're going to continue to drive president trump's agenda forward.”