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‘Be careful about this’: Warnings abound as GOP considers writing off tax cuts

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It’s the accounting maneuver that could break the Senate, upend the federal budget process and explode the national debt.

That’s according to critics of a fiscal tactic that congressional Republicans are now seriously considering as they struggle to figure out how to deliver on all of President Donald Trump’s policy demands.

Adopting the “current policy baseline,” as it’s called, could be the only way for the GOP to make Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent and avoid painful cuts to federal programs, as well as pile on new income tax exemptions for tips, overtime and Social Security. Trump is expected to discuss the move with members of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee at a White House meeting Thursday.

If lawmakers adopt the change, it would essentially make it appear as though extending current tax rates, set to expire at the end of the year, would cost nothing rather than the roughly $4 trillion over 10 years that nonpartisan scorekeepers estimate.

But while some Republicans argue that continuing current tax rates shouldn’t be counted toward the deficit, critics of the maneuver — including prominent GOP budget experts — say that it would be a recipe for disaster, a fiscal Pandora’s box that once opened could be used to forever excuse huge ongoing deficits.

“I would caution my friends, my Republican friends and senators up there, be careful about this,” said Bill Hoagland, the former GOP staff director for the Senate Budget Committee. “Someday you may be in the minority.”

The tactic is so tempting because it would solve a very difficult political problem for Republicans. Budget hawks in the House who do not want the party-line domestic policy bill adding to federal deficits want to ensure that planned tax cuts are closely tied to the amount of spending cuts Republicans can achieve.

Even then, the $4.5 trillion upper limit the House put on tax cuts does not leave enough room for a permanent extension of expiring tax cuts, in addition to all the other tax-related asks Trump has made.

For instance, adding on Trump’s other tax-related asks, such as income tax exemptions for overtime, tips and Social Security benefits, could add up to another $5 trillion, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Critics say members of either party could use the maneuver to disguise trillions of spending through tax policies. Democrats argue that if Republicans move forward, they would be doing away with decades of precedent — and reneging on decades of anti-deficit rhetoric — to enact tax cuts for the wealthy.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren called it “magic math” in an interview and said going in that direction would end the congressional budget process as it has existed for more than 50 years.

“They can’t repeal the underlying reality, a $4.7 trillion giveaway to billionaires and giant corporations will cost $4.7 trillion,” she said, referring to how much the tax cut extensions are estimated to cost with interest.

Said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who signed onto a recent letter with Warren questioning the GOP’s strategy, “If this was done in the accounting world, you wouldn’t be an accountant for very long.”

Meanwhile, the leading advocate of moving to a current policy baseline, Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), argued that it would rectify budget scoring rules that favor higher spending over keeping taxes low.

“If you’re not changing the tax code, you’re simply extending current policy, you are not increasing the deficit,” Crapo said on Fox Business in January. “We’ve got to get some kind of sensibility into the way that we score.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a Budget Committee member, brushed off the idea that Republicans were undermining the budget procedures in place since 1974 — but also acknowledged that turnabout could be fair play when Democrats get their next governing trifecta.

“They will probably use current policy themselves in the future when they’re back in the majority,” he said.

Besides being controversial from an accounting perspective, the current policy baseline represents a major political gamble for Republicans, with the fate of potentially all of Trump’s tax agenda hanging in the balance.

That’s because the GOP might not know for weeks, if not months, if the maneuver will pass muster with the Senate’s parliamentarian. With a permanent extension of the expiring tax cuts moving toward the center of the Republican must-do list, an adverse ruling could create a huge hole in the GOP’s math.

“It would complicate making the tax cuts permanent,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who chairs the Budget Committee.

That could create pressure for Republicans to overrule or even fire the parliamentarian — a move that would upend the delicate balance senators of both parties have adhered to for decades: Only bills that comply with strict fiscal rules aimed at reducing deficits can be exempted from the chamber’s 60-vote requirement for ending debate and moving to a final vote.

“As far as I’m concerned, that might as well give away the filibuster in the Senate,” Hoagland said.

Republicans, for their part, say they aren’t doing anything out of compliance with the longstanding budget rules. And there’s widespread skepticism inside the Senate GOP that they would ever vote to overrule the longtime parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough.

We can say “it’s a $4 trillion deficit that we’re going to add into this, or we can say it’s current policy, but everyone knows it’s the exact same the next day,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) in an interview. “So it’s nomenclature.”

Key GOP staff are already quietly meeting with the parliamentarian to try to get informal vibe checks on what she is thinking. Though senators won’t get a formal ruling until they go through what’s called a “Byrd bath” — when the reconciliation bill is vetted to make sure it complies with the rules that allow them to pass it by a simple majority — they can and frequently do have conversations with the parliamentarian’s office before that as they try to game out their procedural strategy.

“We think the law is pretty clear … but these things are all subject to discussion and arguments made in front of the parliamentarian,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in a brief interview, while cautioning that they were a long way away from that point.

But there’s skepticism from former longtime congressional staff and budget experts that the Senate GOP plan will fall within the rules of reconciliation. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, predicted the parliamentarian won’t green-light the GOP strategy because it “seems like a pretty big stretch” of the rules.

George Callas of Arnold Ventures, who served as former Speaker Paul Ryan’s top tax aide during the drafting of the 2017 law, said adopting the current policy baseline would amount to a “huge gimmick.”

“My understanding is that the Senate parliamentarian gives a great deal of weight to the existing rules and the precedents and takes a skeptical look at just expedient reinterpretations of those rules for political reasons,” he said.

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Capitol agenda: WHCD attack jolts Mike Johnson’s big week

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Saturday night’s White House Correspondents Dinner attack is shaking up what was already going to be a grueling week for House GOP leaders.

Here’s what we know.

Speaker Mike Johnson, who was among those evacuated from the Washington Hilton, is moving ahead with votes on the three-year Section 702 extension on Tuesday, the immigration enforcement budget blueprint on Wednesday and the farm bill on Thursday.

All three have been mired in internal GOP squabbles, and a rank-and-file hunger to respond to the WHCD shooting may create further complications. GOP hard-liners including Rep. Chip Roy are pushing for White House ballroom money to be attached to immigration funding.

One response that some House Republicans are starting to explore is creating a special committee to investigate the shooting and security around the event, said three people granted anonymity to relay the discussions. Already, House Oversight, House Homeland Security and Senate Judiciary have requested briefings from the Secret Service.

King Charles III’s address to Congress Tuesday is proceeding, and Hill leadership circles have discussed tightening security protocols.

With President Donald Trump vowing to reschedule the media gala, lawmakers are also warning about the need to strengthen security around the next gathering of the president, his Cabinet, congressional leaders and hundreds of journalists and their guests.

“There needs to be wholesale change,” Rep. Mike Lawler, who attended Saturday, said in an interview. “This nutjob could have walked into any of the other events before the dinner and caused mass casualties.”

“I was at a table talking about how accessible members of Congress are, and then pop, pop, pop,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman said in an interview. He added that a “hotel is a bad idea,” and argued that the construction of a White House ballroom, which has been mired in litigation, should get the go-ahead.

Mark Teixeira, the former Major League Baseball player poised to succeed Roy in his Texas Hill Country district, said in an interview that, after he heard the shots and ducked under his table, his mind started racing to the worst-case scenario — “that somebody was inside the room with a gun and a suppressor.”

“My heart sank,” he said. “Your mind just goes to the worst-case scenario. … You’re just hoping that no one was shot, including the president.”

“The hotel and surrounding area” were not secure, he added.

What else we’re watching

Sanders vs. Schumer: Sen. Bernie Sanders is vowing to force more votes to block U.S. arms sales to Israel and build on growing momentum among Democrats, despite opposition from leaders including Chuck Schumer.

“What is noteworthy is that you have two major leaders of the Democratic Party, both Chuck and Kirsten Gillibrand, being in the significant minority of their party in terms of their votes on continuing to fund military aid to Israel,” Sanders said in an interview.

Warsh likely Fed chair by mid-May: With Sen. Thom Tillis now on board, Senate Republicans are set to approve Kevin Warsh’s Federal Reserve chair nomination in what will likely be a party-line committee vote Wednesday and then confirm him for the position the week of May 11.

The timeline would get Warsh to the central bank ahead of Jerome Powell’s term as Fed chair expiring on May 15. Absent unanimous consent to expedite Warsh’s confirmation, Senate Majority Leader John Thune can file cloture on the nomination as soon as Thursday.

Sophia Cai, Jordain Carney, Hailey Fuchs and Jasper Goodman contributed reporting.

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‘It’s going to be a circus’: Inside Mike Johnson’s grueling week’

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Welcome to another grueling week in the House.

A growing list of deadlines is bearing down on Speaker Mike Johnson as House Republicans try to push through an extension of an expiring government spy power Tuesday, a budget plan to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown Wednesday and a farm bill many members say is key to midterm victories Thursday.

Each legislative undertaking is deeply complicated and rife with intraparty warfare — from a MAHA revolt over the farm bill to a rebellion from ultraconservatives who blocked Johnson’s last bid to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and could do so again.

Johnson is also facing a rebellion from his rank-and-file all the way up to some of his senior members over his plan to move ahead with the budget resolution the Senate advanced last week that would only address immigration enforcement funding. Hard-liners insist they need a comprehensive follow-up to last summer’s tax and spending megabill to help them stave off massive losses in the November elections.

Hanging over it all are the events of this past weekend’s White House Correspondents Dinner, where a gunman fired shots near a ballroom where the president, vice president, the Speaker of the House and Cabinet officials in the line of presidential succession were all dining.

It’s not clear yet how it will affect negotiations around extending Section 702 or passing an immigration funding bill by April 30 and June 1, respectively, but lawmakers late Saturday night and the weekend said it underscored the need to quickly reopen DHS, which houses the Secret Service.

The speaker will need nearly every Republican to advance all three of these critical items that hold enormous political and policy consequences; none are guaranteed to survive the week.

“It’s going to be a circus,” one Republican said.

“The week from hell,” another added.

GOP leaders are already losing precious floor time Tuesday when King Charles III, who is in town for a state visit at the White House, will address a joint session, forcing leaders to cut off House votes by noon, according to two people with knowledge of the plans. Republican leaders are now in further talks surrounding security protocols for the royal visit, which could result in additional delays for the House GOP early in the week.

This week will also mark 60 days since the start of the conflict with Iran, and some Republicans are growing anxious over the economic uncertainty it has wrought, especially concerning energy prices. This is the time, some GOP lawmakers have warned, they could break rank and vote with Democrats on legislation to rein in Trump’s military authority overseas, though, many Republicans are pointing to the ceasefire — though tenuous — as a reason to continue opposing war powers resolutions for the time being.

And in another blow, Johnson is down one GOP vote as Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-N.J.) has been away from Capitol Hill since March 5, with little more explanation than his team saying he’s dealing with a personal health matter.

AfterPOLITICO reported that New Jersey House Republicans have called and texted Kean, only to get “radio silence,” Johnson released a statement late last week saying he spoke “by phone” with Kean last Thursday. He added: “He is attending to a personal health matter and expects to be back to 100% very soon.”

Perhaps the biggest political landmine for Johnson will be the budget resolution needed to allow Republicans to write and pass a filibuster-skirting reconciliation bill funding immigration enforcement activities under DHS. Trump is demanding such a bill on his desk in a little over a month, at which point the House is expected to finally pass a bipartisan measure funding all other DHS operations and end the record-setting shutdown.

But Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio and other Republicans have warned the budget resolution will fail on the floor if Johnson pushes ahead with the narrow Senate plan rather than a more expansive policy package. Republican leadership needs to convince these members to go along with the Senate budget plan for immigration funding now — by promising to move another partisan package of other GOP priorities later.

“We will not get a third reconciliation bill,” Davidson said in a statement. “We need to use reconciliation 2.0 to deliver the full agenda the American people sent us to accomplish. The train is leaving the station, and we need to load it up.”

Leaders plan to discuss the matter in closed-door meetings throughout the week, conference-wide and in smaller groups. The speaker will also try to put some more meat on the bones of general ideas Republicans could pursue in a later party-line package during the weekly House GOP conference meeting Tuesday, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.

Changes to the blueprint, Johnson and his allies caution, would punt the measure back to the Senate and almost certainly cause Republicans to miss Trump’s deadline. The White House and Homeland Secretary Secretary Markwayne Mullin are warning the administration is running out of money to pay a swath of DHS employees, increasing the urgency to move quickly.

Some senior House Republicans believe the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner could spur some GOP lawmakers to put aside their various gripes and support the budget resolution now, recognizing national security risks without a fully operational DHS, according to three people granted anonymity to speak candidly.

“I think Congress should pass DHS funding — it needs to be everything,” said Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) in an interview Sunday. “I think it’s going to be a much higher priority.”

Many Republicans said the events of Saturday night should prompt Democrats to end the impasse over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda and just vote to reopen all agency operations without conditions. Democratic leaders were signaling Sunday their calculus hadn’t changed, however, underscoring the need for Republicans to pursue a party-line approach to immigration funding if other department functions stand a chance of coming back online in the coming weeks.

The Secret Service is still getting paid through emergency funding, lowering that pressure point for now.

The Saturday shooting also has had the adverse effect of ginning up enthusiasm among hard-liners to expand the pending budget resolution to allow construction of the White House ballroom to proceed despite legal challenges, with members arguing increased political violence necessitates a secure place for elected officials to gather safely.

“Any consideration of DHS reconciliation instructions this week & beyond should provide for construction of a secure ballroom on White House grounds,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) posted on social media.

Budget Chair Jodey Arrington, Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan and Rep. August Pfluger — who helms the Republican Study Committee of 189 Republicans — spent last week agitating for broadening out the upcoming party-line package beyond just stalled immigration funding. They all stood up during a closed-door conference meeting last week to make their case, according to four people granted anonymity to share details of the discussion.

Then there’s legislation to renew section 702 in time to both meet the expiration deadline and give the Senate time to clear it for Trump’s signature.

Johnson unveiled a reworked, three-year extension late last week but he has to sell it to a group of House Freedom Caucus members who want guardrails on the government’s warrantless surveillance practices. Many hard-liners are still not backing down from demands that leadership agree to advance a ban on a central bank digital currency as part of a reauthorization.

And finally there’s the farm bill. Activists with the Make America Healthy Again movement — a coalition that helped President Donald Trump win the presidency in 2024 — say they’ve been betrayed by the GOP over a provision in the legislation that would shield pesticide makers from lawsuits.

Some Republican lawmakers are so angry about the leadership-sanctioned plan that they’re now working with a group of House Democrats to strip out the provision or kill the whole bill, according to four people involved in the conversations.

Farm state Republicans, who are aligned with the powerful pesticide industry, don’t think the pushback will be successful; they argue the farm bill simply clarifies labeling rules and national standards for popular pesticides and herbicides used by the agriculture sector. But threats from the opposition could present a major headache and draw attention to larger party dysfunction.

Several conservatives are privately warning they could take down the farm bill and Johnson’s DHS funding plans if he tries to steamroll them on a Section 702 extension that relies on some bipartisan support.

“They are all connected,” one House Republican warned of the trio of bills.

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The MAHA revolt threatening the farm bill

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Republican infighting between two important constituencies — the agriculture sector and the MAHA coalition — is threatening passage of a bill leaders are counting on to help woo rural voters ahead of the midterms.

House GOP leaders hope this week to advance a long-stalled farm bill that would secure a slew of industry and rural investments. They see a political incentive to move quickly now to shore up farm country support in advance of the November elections, plus heed calls from President Donald Trump to “PASS THE FARM BILL, NOW!

The farm bill traditionally comes to the floor with bipartisan support. But House Democrats this time are largely opposed to the package because it does not reverse the massive cuts to the country’s largest food aid program enacted by last year’s GOP megabill. That’s putting extra under pressure on Republicans to see it over the finish line amid intraparty disagreements over provisions related to pesticides, livestock laws and ethanol sales.

The biggest source of conflict is over a provision that would shield pesticide makers — a powerful lobbying force with agriculture state Republicans — from lawsuits. It comes as the Trump administration has also moved to protect access to a key pesticide after chemical manufacturers told the White House they were concerned about regulatory uncertainty or MAHA-driven crackdowns. Removing the measure would stoke backlash from Trump officials and farm state Republicans.

MAHA activists feel betrayed after voting for Trump in hopes that his administration would crack down on chemical exposure they blame for driving up chronic illness and disease. And now these activists are so fed up that they’ve turned to working with a group of House Democrats to strip out the language, according to four people granted anonymity to share private discussions.

Several Republicans who wield enormous power in Speaker Mike Johnson’s razor-thin majority could try to tank the entire bill If the provision isn’t removed.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), one of the main Republicans opposed to the pesticide provision, said she opposes the farm bill in its current form. Her biggest concern? “Glyphosate,” she said, referring to the widely used chemical weed killer targeted by MAHA.

Most Republicans don’t think the pocket of bipartisan opposition to the pesticide provision will be successful, arguing that the bill clarifies labeling rules and national standards for pesticides and herbicides used by farmers.

House Agriculture Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) said during the bill’s markup the provision is “critical for securing access to the well-regulated pesticide tools” in line with Republicans’ focus on food affordability ahead of the midterms.

Even Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said in an interview that he plans to vote for the final bill despite his concerns about the pesticide language, because it includes a pilot project allowing small meat processors to bypass federal USDA inspections and sell directly to consumers.

But the Kentucky Republican is still pushing to strip out the pesticide measure, arguing that the “government is under siege” by chemical company lobbyists. And further inflaming tensions and drawing attention to divisions is that the farm bill will hit the floor the same week the Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in a high-profile case on whether the maker of glyphosate-based Roundup should be preempted from failure-to-warn claims for cancer risks from pesticide use.

Massie and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) are scheduled to be among a group of speakers at a MAHA-organized rally — advertised as “The People vs. Poison” — outside the Supreme Court Monday morning.

Pingree, who has fought for years against Republicans efforts to pass similar language, has co-sponsored a bipartisan amendment to remove the pesticide language from this year’s farm bill.

“It’s good that there are Republicans on there, and one of the reasons we wanted to be sure it was bipartisan is because they’re more likely to be in a position to pressure the Rules Committee members and the chair,” Pingree said of her amendment.

Pingree’s is among hundreds of amendments House Republican leaders will need to wade through when the Rules Committee meets Monday afternoon to pave the way for floor consideration of the farm bill. Johnson and his leadership team have been working to stave off amendment votes in relation to other bills. But they may need to allow some on the farm package to, at the very least, guarantee adoption of a party-line procedural rule vote necessary to get onto the underlying measure.

Luna, the MAHA-aligned Republican, said in an interview that leaders haven’t committed to allowing a floor vote on her amendment to strip out the pesticide measure.

Pennsylvania GOP Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Ryan Mackenzie, and Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Nancy Mace of South Carolina have all introduced amendments to strip parts of or all pesticide provisions in the bill.

The farm bill is also in peril over a provision that would undo state-level guidelines on livestock sales — specifically a California ballot initiative governing pig confinement that pork producers have argued hurts their bottom lines and created regulatory inconsistencies across states.

Luna and other Republican supporters, including Mace and Reps. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey and Andrew Garbarino and Mike Lawler of New York, say reversing the referendum would undermine states’ abilities to govern agricultural practices within their own borders.

Another policy fight — allowing year-round sales of higher blends of ethanol at the gas pump — could throw a wrench into farm bill passage plans, too. Biofuels backers and agriculture groups are lobbying members to include a bipartisan E15 amendment in the legislation, with fuel prices spike from the Iran war adding further pressure to find a solution that might bring down prices for consumers.

But GOP leaders would need to grant a waiver to be able to include such an amendment in the bill, since the issue falls outside the House Agriculture Committee’s jurisdiction. And lawmakers who represent small, independent refiners would also oppose the proposal and may vote against the whole package over it.

In the meantime, Thompson is doing a hard sell, saying in an interview that the legislation would be a “real morale boost” that would increase farmers’ borrowing capabilities and modernize programs through the Agriculture Department that haven’t been updated since 2018.

During a closed-door meeting last week, Thompson also pitched GOP hard-liners who regularly oppose the farm bill to support it this time, arguing that the direct farm subsidies they are most opposed to are not included because Republicans approved billions of dollars in new spending to bolster the so-called farm safety net as part of last year’s megabill.

Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), who was the chair of the Agriculture Committee when Congress passed the 2014 farm bill, told reporters recently that lawmakers should avoid delaying the farm bill another year: The legislation hasn’t been updated since 2018 and was due to be reauthorized in 2023.

“You don’t want to roll this over into a brand new Congress,” Lucas warned “The issues that are entailed here are not that complicated. There’s some controversial things … many of those things, ultimately, in this process, fall out. That’s just the nature of the way things happen.”

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