Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You'll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day's biggest stories. GOING GLOBAL AGAIN: As it turns out, the Republicans might not have needed to ask Budapest if they wanted to talk more about the global agreement brokered through the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Peter Szijjarto, Hungary's foreign minister and an ally of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, said in a recent interview that his government is "constantly consulting" with Republicans about the OECD deal, as The Washington Post's Jeff Stein reported. Not surprisingly, liberal tax experts weren't happy with Smith and Kelly's outreach to Hungary, basically arguing that the Republicans were undercutting their own government to service tax dodgers. Those more sympathetic to the GOP letter noted that it's a multilateral agreement, so it shouldn't be some huge incident if skeptics discussed their concerns together. Still, the letter did raise some interesting questions — like why didn't Smith and Kelly publicize the letter? (Neither posted it on their website, and news of the letter only trickled out days after it was sent.) Not to mention: Why were only two Republicans on a letter that lays out some pretty widespread GOP concerns about the global tax deal? For their part, Smith and Kelly said in a joint statement that they "proactively wrote this letter to the Hungarians to exchange concerns and identify potential areas of cooperation." But here's probably the most pressing question: Does this letter really affect Democrats' efforts to expand the U.S.'s existing minimum tax on the foreign income of domestic multinationals? Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer continue to discuss a potential fiscal plan that would raise taxes, generate new revenues through prescription drug reforms, reduce deficits and enact new climate provisions. (Also up in the air: What to do about those expanded Obamacare subsidies that are about to expire?) Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is among those pushing Democratic lawmakers to increase the rate on the levy on Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (GILTI) to 15 percent and to apply it on a country-by-country basis as part of any agreement — updates that would put the U.S. in line with the OECD agreement that Yellen was crucial in getting across the finish line. Bloomberg reported last week that Democrats were considering dropping the country-by-country requirement from any deal. It's not clear if Manchin or Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have any huge concerns about the trouble that Brussels is having with the minimum tax. But either way, it's hard to see how this newest letter might raise too many more questions for them. ABOUT THOSE MANCHIN-SCHUMER TALKS: Who knows how much longer this caveat will have, but one more time — it's still totally possible that the Manchin-Schumer talks bear fruit, and there's still time for everything to fall apart. But it is interesting that there does seem to be more detail spilling out about how exactly Democrats might pare back their revenue-raisers in a budget reconciliation deal. Latest case in point: Insider's Joseph Zeballos-Roig reported that a surtax on the very rich, put in the House-passed Build Back Better legislation last year after Sinema rejected increasing tax rates, is likely out of any final package. Sinema has since sounded unsure about whether she would have wanted that surtax to hit pass-through income, and there had been further chatter in recent weeks that a reconciliation measure might have a carveout for those businesses. Perhaps more to the point: Sinema's line for some time now is that she's agreed to more than enough revenue to find a deal — though it looks like she'd have to weigh in once more if Schumer and Manchin can get somewhere. As it stands, it looks like any Manchin-Schumer deal would have about $1 trillion in new revenues and about a half-billion dollars in benefits. So it might actually be a positive sign for a deal that there is more talk about how and specifically where the Democrats might be shrinking their tax increases. Still, don't forget the calendar: Lawmakers come back to Washington in a week, and then the House only has three scheduled weeks of voting until it breaks for August. So the time crunch is real.
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