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As the tax cut legislation passed by the Senate early Saturday hurtles toward final approval, Republicans are preparing to use the swelling deficits made worse by the package as a rationale to pursue their long-held vision: undoing the entitlements of the New Deal and Great Society, leaving government leaner and the safety net skimpier for millions of Americans. Speaker Paul D. Ryan and other Republicans are beginning to express their big dreams publicly, vowing that next year they will move on to changes in Medicare and Social Security.

WASHINGTON — By midafternoon on Friday, Republicans had the votes to pass their tax bill in the Senate. What they did not have was a bill. The legislation, covering nearly 500 pages, finally surfaced well after the sun had set. It appeared first in the lobbying shops of K Street, which sent back copies to some Democrats in the Senate, who took to social media to protest being asked to vote in a matter of hours on a bill that had yet to be shared with them directly. The drafts that leaked to journalists included changes scrawled in looping handwriting in the margins.

The Republican tax plan would have far-reaching effects on virtually every American, but it’s fair to say tax policy is not the easiest subject to follow. If you haven’t kept up with the story as much as you feel you should have, or if you’re wondering where to focus your attention, we hope this collection of our explanatory reporting will help. No economics degree is necessary. This is a good starting point if you’re coming in fresh, giving you a big-picture look at the goals and challenges of the tax plan. The plan would affect not just how much money is in your tax return.

WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans, buoyed by the Senate’s approval early Saturday of a landmark tax overhaul, expressed confidence that final legislation would be sent to President Trump by the end of this month. While the tax bills approved by the House and the Senate diverge in significant ways, the same forces that rocketed the measures to passage appear likely to bond Republicans in the two chambers as they work to hash out the differences. Republicans passed their sweeping tax overhaul through the Senate just before 2 a.m.

ABC News on Saturday suspended investigative reporter Brian Ross for four weeks without pay for his erroneous report on

The massive tax overhaul passed by the Senate early Saturday morning will if enacted into law impact millions of Americans in different ways. By and large, the most costly provision continues to be reducing the corporate tax rate to 20 percent. The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) gives that a $1.4 trillion price tag. Republican claims the measure would pay for itself were also debunked this week by the JCT.

"Saturday Night Live" got into the Donald Trump's expense. The show's cold open, inspired by Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," featured WATCH: "SNL" COLD OPEN "Mr. President, I came to warn you, it's time to come clean for the good of the country," Day's Flynn said. "There's a lot of people from your past that could come back to haunt you.

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President FBI, Dowd told ABC News Saturday. "I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI," James Comey later testified?

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