Congress

House GOP continues to squabble over tax cuts as lawmakers enter a critical week

Published

1 year ago

February 10, 2025

Prominent House Republicans are privately warring over how to advance tax cuts that are expiring and President Donald Trump’s long list of other tax demands — with Budget Chair Jodey Arrington and deficit hard-liner Rep. Chip Roy locked in a struggle against Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith and other senior Republicans.

The dispute is hindering Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to advance a budget blueprint this week, as different GOP factions continue to squabble over the costs of the tax plan, how to offset them to reduce their deficit impact and possible cost-saving changes to programs including Medicare and assistance for low-income Americans.

Johnson confirmed Sunday that Republicans were continuing to work through several issues, again delaying his ambitious timeline.

Despite progress last week, one of the major hang-ups in negotiations over the GOP’s sweeping policy bill is that Arrington, fellow Texan Roy and other budget hawks are still scouring for additional and highly controversial spending cuts.

They are also pushing for changes to a critical piece of the complex process: the so-called “budget reconciliation instruction” for the tax writing Ways and Means Committee, according to two Republicans and another person familiar with the discussions who were granted anonymity to discuss the ongoing talks.

That instruction dictates the maximum amount by which the committee can increase the deficit, as lawmakers take into account a full extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and the implementation of his other priorities, like exempting tips and overtime pay from federal income tax.

Smith (R-Mo.) presented a number at the GOP’s retreat in Doral, Florida last month — around $5.5 trillion — that reflected his committee’s understanding of how much it would cost to implement Trump’s priorities, after spending reductions and other revenue raisers Ways and Means can pull together.

Arrington, Roy and other fiscal hawks are trying to further constrain that committee’s deficit spending but are not on the same page as Smith on the reconciliation instruction. Other senior Republicans are worried they won’t be able to cram all of Trump’s tax demands into the package.

The number that lawmakers had tentatively settled on last Thursday — around $4.7 trillion — would make it virtually impossible to implement anything above an extension of the expiring tax cuts. House Republicans agreed during their White House meeting last week that they would permanently extend the 2017 tax cuts, which are estimated by Congress’ official accountants as costing $4.6 trillion.

The $4.7 trillion figure “is an implicit acknowledgement that something will have to give,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist, in an interview.

“[T]here will absolutely have to be trade-offs. You simply can’t fit it all into that,” Donovan said.

Republicans have been discussing shorter timelines for some of Trump’s other tax priorities.

Arrington outlined to reporters last week that there were essentially two ways to adjust the cost of the GOP’s policy package.

“You got the tax dial and you got the spending reduction dials,” Arrington said.

But a senior GOP aide familiar with the discussions, granted anonymity to discuss the private deliberations, pointed out that “dials can only do so much.” Johnson, Smith and other GOP leaders are generally pushing to achieve all of Trump’s broad tax goals.

Roy also recently told reporters that if Republicans didn’t achieve deep enough spending cuts, then “we’re gonna have to be thinking about shorter-term tax rates or…which ones we’ll be able to address or not.”

Meanwhile, anger is rising across large pockets of the House GOP, who believe lowering the cost number would make it impossible to advance Trump’s tax priorities, including the extension of the expiring cuts and his add-ons

“Roy and Arrington will make the tax cut portion not passable,” said one GOP lawmaker.

Republicans will then be “facing the largest tax increase in history” or be forced to strike a bipartisan tax deal with Democrats before the current policies expire at the end of the year, the GOP lawmaker added.

The two Texans, the lawmaker said, should “listen to” GOP leaders and Smith.

The unrest is reigniting House GOP leaders’ concerns that Roy and other hard-liners are trying to burn time to undercut the leaders’ preference for a single bill that would include taxes, border policy, energy provisions and national security measures, according to two Republicans familiar with the conversations. The Senate favors a two-track strategy, that would include the border, energy and defense measures in one bill and leave taxes for later, in a separate bill.

Roy, Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) and other hard-liners favor the two-bill approach and have been back-channeling with Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) as he prepares to mark up his budget plans this week in committee.

Centrists and even some more conservative Republicans are also increasingly alarmed that Arrington keeps raising Medicare reforms as a potential spending offset, according to three Republicans familiar with the ongoing talks. Trump made it clear on the campaign trail that he doesn’t want to touch Medicare, but Arrington has suggested a variety of changes to the program that would lower costs in the Ways and Means’ jurisdiction.

House Republicans from corn-growing states are also infuriated that Arrington has his eye on slashing tax incentives for biofuels, after a similar move almost blew up former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s 2023 debt ceiling deal. Many agriculture-state Republicans are already irritated at Arrington for declining to help them press the Congressional Budget Office for additional revenue for the farm bill last year, and tempers are flaring again.

GOP leaders are also planning to use tariff revenue to help pay for the massive bill, even though many Republicans are skeptical of such a move. Trump said Sunday he’s planning to announce new levies this week.

Republicans are also planning to include enacting the first-ever work requirements for Medicaid in the package, according to two people familiar with the ongoing talks. They’re also planning to expand work requirements for SNAP food aid benefits that help feed more than 40 million low-income Americans and a smaller cash assistance program known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

The work requirements can be adjusted depending on how big of a funding gap they need to fill, according to Republicans involved in the discussions. For example, they can increase the age range of the additional work requirements if needed, along with plans to rescind the ability of states to request federal waivers for SNAP work requirements for certain individuals and other flexibilities in the program.

Congress

Congressional staff visit prison facility where Ghislaine Maxwell is held

Published

7 hours ago

June 17, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Staff for the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees on Tuesday visited the Texas federal prison facility where Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, is being held, according to the panel’s top Democrats.

In a statement, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Robert Garcia of California — the ranking members on Judiciary and Oversight, respectively — said staff traveled there as part of the panel’s ongoing Epstein investigation in search of “answers about Ms. Maxwell’s unprecedented transfer and VIP treatment.”

Republican and Democratic staff from both committees attended a three-hour visit to the Texas facility, which included a two-hour tour and a back-and-forth with the facility staff, including the warden, according to a person familiar with the trip who requested anonymity to describe the private visit.

The warden argued that Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for her part in Epstein’s sex trafficking scheme, was not necessarily given special treatment, according to that person; rather, because of her prominence, measures were required because she had to remain inside for 30 days.

The lawmakers added that they received little in the way of new details, though, and doubted the truthfulness of the information that they did receive.

“Bureau of Prisons leadership repeatedly shut down our lines of questioning or could not provide basic information about our central concerns, including Ms. Maxwell’s extraordinary treatment, allegations of sexual assault at the facility, and retaliation against inmates who tried to blow the whistle,” Raskin and Garcia said in a statement released Tuesday evening.

Maxwell was moved from a prison in Florida to the minimum security prison camp in Texas after meeting with then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to discuss the Epstein case. During that interview, Maxwell claimed she never saw President Donald Trump in any inappropriate setting with Epstein, the late convicted sex offender.

Democrats have questioned whether her transfer to a cushier facility was part of a quid pro quo with the Trump administration facilitated by Blanche, who is now the acting attorney general and Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Justice. Although the president has said he broke off contact with Epstein years before his death behind bars in 2019, his onetime relationship with the financier has drawn scrutiny.

Raskin said last October he wanted his staff to conduct oversight of the Texas detention center. In November, Judiciary Democrats announced they had received information from a whistleblower that suggested Maxwell was receiving preferential treatment there.

In their statement Tuesday, Raskin and Garcia vowed they would continue to investigate Blanche’s “role in ensuring Ms. Maxwell remains comfortable and quiet.”

Congress

White House’s Anthropic move jolts Congress back into the AI debate

Published

7 hours ago

June 17, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Trump administration’s sudden moves to rein in Anthropic are giving fresh momentum to efforts in Congress to impose guardrails on cutting-edge artificial intelligence models.

Lawmakers are still seeking clear information about the government’s decision late Friday to impose an export ban on the AI company’s latest models, known as Fable 5 and Mythos 5, over cybersecurity concerns — a move that led Anthropic to suspend access to both for all users.

In roughly a dozen interviews on Capitol Hill this week, several lawmakers said they were shocked by the development and had yet to receive a formal briefing from administration officials. Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas), whose committee has jurisdiction over AI policy, said Monday that he had seen “what’s been reported in the press,” but had not been briefed on details.

Members of both parties said they now see an opening to mobilize their colleagues around legislation that would reclaim congressional authority at a time when the executive branch remains firmly in the drivers’ seat on AI regulation.

But lawmakers have struggled to reach consensus on a complicated and politically divisive matter in an election year. And the circumstances around the Anthropic saga could further drive a wedge between Democrats, who generally favor strong regulatory review requirements of new AI models, and Republicans, who tend to be wary of such a heavy hand.

“I think we’re landing more and more in a place where everybody’s realizing you need some type of government oversight,” said Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) in an interview Tuesday. “I think we’re still struggling with what that is.”

Disagreements over policy are being exacerbated by Democrats’ wariness to legislate on AI in a GOP-controlled Washington ahead of the midterm elections, with some viewing a potential House majority as their best opportunity to enact AI rules more closely aligned with Democratic priorities. Some Democratic lawmakers said this week that the Anthropic episode was just the latest example of the Trump administration’s erratic decision-making.

“I think this is an indicator that this administration no longer believes in a free market,” said Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who is in line to be the No. 2 Senate Democrat in the next Congress. “They believe in picking winners and losers.”

The administration’s decision regarding Anthropic came two weeks after Trump signed an executive order establishing a voluntary vetting regime that asks AI companies to submit their advanced models to the government 30 days before they are released to the public.

“If even this … administration is suddenly saying this is a security risk, why are we allowing these entities to put this out without testing?” asked Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Anthropic’s relationship with the White House has been strained since a standoff with the Defense Department earlier this year, when the Pentagon labeled Anthropic a supply-chain risk. While the unveiling of Anthropic’s latest model Mythos prompted the government to soften its stance toward the company, last week’s events signalled the repair may have been superficial.

“If Donald Trump thinks we need export controls on Anthropic, then how about putting export controls on the computer chips that will let China build their own version of Anthropic?” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), said Tuesday in an interview.

When asked to rate the chances of Congress passing legislation to set federal standards for AI regulations, she replied, “It would be high if it weren’t for Donald Trump.”

This all comes as Washington was already grappling with the larger question of how to regulate the AI industry to ensure the safety of models, and whether it should be up to states or the federal government to set those guardrails. The Commerce Committee in the coming weeks is expected to consider a slate of AI bills, including potentially one that would require social media platforms to put mechanisms in place to protect users who are minors.

Some members of Congress are trying to work across the aisle on the issue despite the steep odds. In the House, Reps. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) and Lori Trahan (D-Calif.) last month unveiled a broad AI legislative framework that folds in preemption of state AI laws. Trahan, who has broken with House Democratic leadership in pursuing a bipartisan path on AI, seized on the Anthropic news to urge congressional action.

“This decision further illustrates the need for a thoughtful and durable national strategy on AI,” she posted on X. “Decisions this consequential shouldn’t turn on a single directive issued at 5 pm on a Friday. They should follow rules that are clear, fair, grounded in technical facts, and built to last beyond any one administration.”

Trahan’s spokesperson, in a statement Tuesday, said, “Whether the decision by the administration was political or actually based on a real threat posed … it underscores the fact that Congress must act urgently and in a bipartisan fashion.”

The Trahan-Obernolte proposal would stop short of calling for a mandatory review system for new frontier AI models, however, which could become difficult in the post-Anthropic era.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), who is co-chair of the House Democratic Commission on AI, said in an interview that the Trump administration last week “ma[d]e it clear the importance of actually mandatory reviews when it comes to government reviews, when it comes to models and national security-related issues.”

“If there were a piece of legislation for a mandatory review,” he added, “I’d certainly support that.”

Sen. Todd Young of Indiana offered a measured response to the events of the last several days, saying the Senate Commerce Committee, of which he is a member, would work to try to get answers. He added that the recent developments could “conceivably” propel lawmakers to work together on legislation that would establish a system to review new models.

“You don’t want to just be trusting private actors to do the right thing and trusting their judgment, because the risk we’re talking about here could conceivably be catastrophic,” Young said, adding, “I think everyone wants to get this right.”

Gabby Miller contributed to this report.

Congress

Todd Blanche is trying to charm his way to confirmation

Published

9 hours ago

June 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Todd Blanche is mounting a charm offensive with Republican senators as his nomination as attorney general inches forward. So far, he seems to be saying the right things.

The scheduling of a confirmation hearing next month and positive early reviews from GOP swing votes are raising expectations that the acting Justice Department head and former personal lawyer to President Donald Trump could be permanently installed later this year.

In his meetings Tuesday with Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, as well as key senators off the panel, Blanche sought to assuage lingering concerns about the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” the department recently proposed as it settled a Trump lawsuit against the IRS.

The fund, which could have funnelled up to $1.8 billion in payouts to Trump political allies, was withdrawn after a bipartisan outcry on Capitol Hill, and Blanche assured senators during the closed-door sitdowns that it’s gone for good.

“We had an extensive discussion on the Anti-Weaponization Fund, which he has assured me with no equivocation at all that he is not for it, will not pursue it, that it will not exist,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters, calling it a “very good meeting.”

Blanche’s private assurances come ahead of his scheduled July 15 appearance before the Judiciary Committee, where he is certain to be grilled on the fund and his handling of other matters involving Trump. With Democrats on the panel unlikely to support Blanche’s confirmation, he will need to win over all 12 panel Republicans in order to advance to a floor vote, which could take place as soon as the first week of August.

The payout fund is a major issue Blanche will have to address, but it will not be the only one. The IRS settlement also included a provision indemnifying the president and his family against future tax audits, which has raised hackles with at least one Senate Republican.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said Blanche had committed to giving him a “further briefing on the tax audit issue involving President Trump and his family.” He otherwise said the two had a “positive” meeting.

More generally, Blanche has faced criticism over his close personal ties to Trump, having represented the president in various criminal cases across the country. He was on Trump’s legal team for both federal prosecutions out of former special counsel Jack Smith’s office and for the Stormy Daniels hush money case brought by local prosecutors in Manhattan.

That background has fueled the perception that Blanche has been unduly loyal to Trump in his stewardship of the Justice Department, and some Senate Republicans have indicated that they want to push Blanche on whether he understands the difference between being attorney general and being Trump’s personal lawyer.

But the mere fact that Blanche once represented Trump in a personal capacity is unlikely to derail his chances for confirmation. Every Republican present confirmed Blanche to be deputy attorney general last year knowing that history.

His actions since joining the Justice Department have garnered more scrutiny, however — especially the IRS settlement. He publicly defended the $1.8 billion fund before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee last month in the face of deep skepticism from Democrats and Republicans alike, including Collins.

Two days later, Blanche faced a brutal reception during a closed-door lunch where dozens of Republican senators grilled him over the fund. The controversy threatened to derail a GOP immigration enforcement bill, and it ultimately delayed its passage for more than a week.

Blanche subsequently helped break the stalemate when he told House appropriators that the administration would not move forward with the fund. Those remarks helped publicly assure Senate Republicans, who had been underwhelmed by his appearance at the Senate GOP lunch.

Some senators indicated he still has more assuring to do.

“I like Todd … but I think he’s going to have a rigorous confirmation,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), another Judiciary member. “I think he’ll ultimately be confirmed, but I’ve got some hard questions for him.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has been careful not to guarantee Blanche will be confirmed, noting he first has to get out of the Judiciary Committee where multiple GOP senators are keeping things close to the vest.

“If he can get a strong vote coming out of the Judiciary Committee, then my expectation is, we would be able to process him on the floor,” Thune told reporters this week. “You’ve got a couple people on that committee that he’ll have to convince, but I know that he’s prepared to do that.”

A critical Republican on the panel — retiring Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina — will meet with Blanche next week.

Tillis has previously tanked Trump nominees over concerns relating to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including Ed Martin’s nomination to be U.S. attorney in D.C. But the senator gave no initial indications this week of disqualifying marks in Blanche’s background regarding the insurrection and its aftermath.

“I haven’t seen anything that, you know, from a Jan. 6 perspective would be a problem,” Tillis said Tuesday. “So now we’re just going through all the other vetting.”

Pressed on the payout fund, he added: “It will be an issue if the weaponization fund isn’t effectively dead by the confirmation hearing because I’ve got a real problem with it being out there.”

With a month to go until Blanche’s hearing and at least another week before he gets a committee vote, further Justice Department activity involving Trump adversaries could continue to weigh on his nomination. California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s disclosure this week that he and his wife are under federal investigation have newly fanned concerns that Blanche is pursuing a retribution campaign at Trump’s behest.

Tillis said he expects to question Blanche at the hearing on the apparent targeting of Trump’s political enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey, who is under indictment in North Carolina for allegedly threatening Trump.

“I want to hear about what the details behind that Comey investigation are,” he said. “Because look, I know that the Biden administration was guilty of weaponization. I don’t believe the proper response is a mirror image.”

Blanche is also certain to face tough questioning next month on another matter: his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Ousted Attorney General Pam Bondi told Congress last month that Blanche oversaw the process of releasing Justice Department files concerning Epstein, the late convicted sex offender. The botched redaction process, which in some cases led to release of private material related to Epstein’s victims or the withholding of information about people who were not victims, has been the subject of bipartisan scrutiny.

House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) has requested Blanche speak with his committee next month about the files’ release, which could put him in lawmakers’ crosshairs just weeks or days before a potential confirmation vote.