Congress

From spaceports to venture capitalists, tailored tax breaks add billions to megabill

Published

1 year ago

July 4, 2025

Special tax breaks for venture capitalists, Alaskan fisheries, spaceports, private schools, rum makers and others — together costing tens of billions of dollars — quietly caught a ride on Republicans’ sprawling domestic policy megabill.

The legislation is primarily designed to prevent $4 trillion in looming tax increases set to hit at the end of this year. But, shortly before approving the plan, Senate Republicans added a new crop of unrelated, bespoke tax breaks. House GOP lawmakers got in their share, too.

Many are the sort of narrowly targeted breaks Republicans have long complained are unfair, reward influential special interests and unnecessarily complicate the tax code.

There’s a new supersized deduction for business meals — though only for employees at certain Alaskan fishing boats and processing plants, with the measure stipulating the facilities must be “located in the United States north of 50 degrees north latitude” though not in a “metropolitan statistical area.”

There’s a $17 billion expansion of a little-known provision that enables venture capitalists to make a fortune tax-free.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) won a carve-out for the oil and gas industry from a minimum tax on big corporations that was created during the Biden administration.

There’s a $2 billion break important to the rum industry and, tangentially, Louisiana, said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a tax writer.

“We have the highest per capita intake of alcohol in the nation,” he said.

The targeted tax breaks have been overshadowed by the main purpose of the legislation: preventing a whole slate of tax cuts from expiring at the end of this year, and enacting a handful of breaks for things like tips and overtime pay that President Donald Trump had promised.

But they nevertheless got the same fast-track-into-law treatment, despite some seeming to come out of nowhere with little public vetting.

Some House Republicans grumbled about the provisions — “loaded with pork to buy key Senate votes,” the chamber’s hard-right Freedom Caucus said in a memo to colleagues. But House lawmakers backed down from threats to sink the plan over fiscal concerns and other complaints, and approved it Thursday on a 218-214 vote that sends it to Trump for his signature into law.

Even as Senate Republicans added their own provisions to the legislation, they deleted some earmarks that had been approved by the House.

Though some of the add-ons are small — like an increase in a special deduction for certain Alaskan whaling captains to buy weapons and maintain their boats — others have price tags that run in the billions.

The bill includes an expansion of a little-known break that Silicon Valley investors have used to nix tax bills on tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars in earnings from Internet startups. Another spends $26 billion to create a new $1,700 credit for people who give to groups providing scholarships for children to attend private school.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) secured a $7 billion tax cut for farmers that allows them to postpone paying some of the capital gains taxes they owe when selling off farmland.

There’s also a $1 billion provision allowing “spaceports” — which the legislation defines as “any facility located at or in close proximity to a launch site or reentry site” — to sell tax-exempt bonds, like airports. Sen. Ron Wyden, the chamber’s top Democratic tax writer, said in an X post that “Trump’s wedding gift to [Jeff] Bezos and birthday gift to [Elon] Musk were tucked in the new budget bill.”

Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) chafed at suggestions the various tax breaks are earmarks.

“I wouldn’t describe them that way,” he said. “You can go through there and find 100 specific issues, and if you want to call them earmarks, that’s your choice, but I don’t think they are.”

“Would you say that if we build a highway, would you say we’re doing an earmark for roads?” he said. “It’s infrastructure policy.”

His colleagues are likewise defending their provisions.

Lankford says the special break for oil and gas companies is needed because the arcane calculations that go into determining when a company is subject to a 15 percent minimum tax are biased against the industry.

The provision reverses the “tax penalty Democrats placed on America’s energy producers and allows our producers to deduct essential capital costs just like any other manufacturer,” he said.

Cassidy said the rum item is a permanent version of a temporary break lawmakers have approved many times before. The Treasury has long transferred federal excise taxes imposed on rum made in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and sold in the U.S. back to those governments.

“We’re attempting to provide certainty for businesses, and that includes distillers,” said Cassidy, whose sugarcane-producing state is part of their supply chain.

Democrats tried, unsuccessfully, to kill some of the proposals.

During Senate deliberations, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) watched her amendment targeting the private-school tax break win bipartisan support but nevertheless go down on a 50-50 vote.

“Nearly 90 percent of K through 12 students attend public schools, yet Republicans are pushing a plan in this bill to undermine support for public schools,” she said. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) retorted that Democrats “are more beholden to teacher union bosses than they are dedicated to fighting for kids.”

Even as they added their own pet projects, Senate Republicans jettisoned earmarks that had been approved by their colleagues in the House. Out is an $800 million tax cut for corporations that have income in the Virgin Islands.

They also dumped plans to spend $10 billion on a provision pushed by the fitness industry, including the YMCA, that would have allowed people to count gym-membership fees as a medical expense in Health Savings Accounts. A provision boosting the Earned Income Tax Credit for some Purple Heart winners was similarly axed.

It wasn’t all bad news for House members, though.

Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) was pleased to see Senate Republicans reinserted his plan sending a $3 billion tax break to real estate investment trusts, after lawmakers had initially deleted it from their draft.

“It was a little questionable about what was going to go and what wasn’t,” he said.

And Senate Republicans not only kept a House-approved provision exempting gun silencers from a long-standing $200 tax on firearms — they dumped the tax on all guns it applied to, except machine guns and what the legislation terms “a destructive device.” That cost: $1.7 billion.

Rep. David Kustoff (R-Tenn.) hailed the plan, calling the charge “an illegal poll tax used as a piggy bank for the federal government.”

Congress

Trump apparently shares Tom Cotton’s phone number in push to make Daylight Saving Time permanent

Published

2 days ago

October 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump appeared to share Sen. Tom Cotton’s phone number in a Saturday morning social media post imploring the Arkansas Republican to get behind a bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.

“Almost everybody wants “The Sunshine Protection Act” to pass, except for Tom Cotton,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”

The president has spent months personally pushing Senate Republicans to end the practice that sees Americans change their clocks twice a year, cementing more sunlight hours in the evening for all twelve months of the calendar. Cotton, whom Trump called “a friend of mine” in the Saturday post, has long argued that making daylight saving time permanent would leave children, farmers and other early risers in the dark for hours on winter mornings.

One of Trump’s key selling points on Saturday: the PGA tour.

“The PGA TOUR, as an example, needs more Daylight in the afternoon in order to finish their Tournaments,” he said, attaching a letter from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp endorsing the bill. ”Likewise, regular Golfers, Tennis Players, Hunters and, perhaps most importantly, Farmers who want more Daylight to play or work.

A Blue Light News call to the cellphone number went to voicemail. A spokesperson for Cotton did not respond to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The current version of the bill was introduced in the House in January 2025 by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) leading the Senate version. The legislation would make daylight saving time permanent across most of the country, ending the twice-yearly clock changes. The legislation has been stalled in the Senate since July.

The president encouraged supporters of the bill, dubbed the “The Sunshine Protection Act,” to call Cotton to “let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”

During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, he publicly gave out the personal cellphone number of then-rival Sen. Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican criticized him. Trump, who came to count on Graham as a reliable Senate ally after he won the presidency, revisited the moment during Graham’s funeral in July, acknowledging that sharing the number was something he “shouldn’t have done.”

Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.

Congress

Sanders to rally for Troy Jackson in Maine

Published

3 days ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.

The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.

The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.

“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”

Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.

He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,

Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.

Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.

Congress

Hill: Trump’s ‘lack of favorability’ creating challenging politics

Published

3 days ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.

“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.

Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.

Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”

Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.

Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.

“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”

Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.