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Wall Street gives up on a 2017 tax overhaul

Wall Street and corporate America view President Donald Trump’s bold agenda for a sweeping tax overhaul as largely dead for the year.Executives, lobbyists and Wall Street analysts increasingly believe the administration — distracted by repeated crises while facing a short and crowded legislative calendar — will be unable to deliver on Trump’s promise to slash corporate and individual tax rates this year and ignite significantly faster economic growth.

The main hope now in corporate America and on Wall Street is that the White House and Congress manage to bypass a scary fight over raising the nation’s debt limit this summer, keep the government open and avoid any major foreign policy crisis.

“It is just completely unrealistic to think they can get a big tax reform bill done this year,” said Greg Valliere, chief global strategist at Horizon Investments. “They haven’t even agreed whether they are doing tax cuts or tax reform. They haven’t decided if it needs to be paid for or not and I don’t think they appreciate just how big a fight the debt limit is going to be.”

Stocks sold off Wednesday morning following the latest Trump blow-up over alleged remarks from the president to then-FBI director James Comey with the Dow off over 200 points in early trading.