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

Cornyn, Tillis confirm they will vote for Blanche

Published

4 hours ago

August 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has a clear path to the Senate Judiciary Committee advancing his nomination to the permanent job after two GOP holdouts confirmed Monday they would vote for him.

The statement from Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) comes after the late-night announcement Sunday of a Justice Department agreement to clarify a controversial May settlement agreement between President Donald Trump and the IRS.

A successful Judiciary vote Tuesday would set Blanche up for confirmation on the Senate floor later this week, before the chamber breaks for August recess.

“We want to express our gratitude to Mr. Blanche and his staff for working with us on this, and we look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon,” Cornyn and Tillis said in a joint statement.

The senators suggested their agreement with Blanche also satisfies the concerns of several other Republican senators off the Judiciary Committee who have raised concerns about the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” created in the original settlement, as well as provisions immunizing Trump and his family from some tax audits.

“We are pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund. Additionally, the Department has acknowledged in a binding written order that the audit settlement is limited to the plaintiffs and the scope does not extend beyond the defendants in the lawsuit, the IRS and the Treasury, addressing concerns that multiple of our Republican colleagues share,” Cornyn and Tillis said.

Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, John Curtis of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are among the other Republicans who have expressed concerns about the payout fund. Blanche recently visited Alaska and announced a flurry of settlements benefiting Alaska as he courts Murkowski’s vote.

Congress

Maryland Dems kick off latest redistricting effort after a year of infighting

Published

5 hours ago

August 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland Democrats kicked off a special session on redistricting Monday, with the battle to redraw House districts around the country showing no signs of stopping at the November midterm elections.

Democrats are gearing up for a process to ultimately draw out the state’s only Republican member of Congress, Rep. Andy Harris. But any new map wouldn’t kick in until 2028.

Instead, the state Legislature is in town this week to vote on a constitutional amendment that some party leaders believe would insulate future redistricting efforts from legal scrutiny. This, after a Maryland state court blocked a proposed 8-0 Democratic district map in 2022, charging that it ran afoul of the state Constitution.

While Democrats around the state, including Gov. Wes Moore, had called for the Legislature to enact redistricting in time for this year’s midterms, Senate President Bill Ferguson — also a Democrat — has long argued that any map redraw coming before an amendment wouldn’t pass legal muster, and that the downside risks were “catastrophic.”

“We’ve known from the beginning what is at stake, and most importantly, we have known that in this moment of American history, it is insufficient to act with haste when the consequences of missteps are so impactful,” Ferguson said at a Monday press conference. “What those consequences could have looked like: a map rejected by Maryland’s Supreme Court. A map drawn by the court that sends us backwards when we could least afford it.”

The new language aims to make clear that certain requirements around compactness and respecting natural and political boundaries apply only to legislative districts and not congressional ones, which could clear a path for the state to gerrymander.

Should lawmakers pass it, Maryland voters would still need to approve the proposed amendment in November.

Republicans have taken a major lead in the interparty redistricting war for this year’s election, particularly after redrawing maps in a handful of Southern states after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in April.

“A legal earthquake changed the landscape this spring,” Ferguson said. “Even worse, we saw states like Tennessee, Louisiana, and South Carolina act with haste to attempt to eliminate majority-minority congressional districts. These acts changed the calculus, and that’s why we’re here.”

(Tennessee and Louisiana changed their lines for 2026, but South Carolina ultimately did not.)

The amendment, Ferguson said, “ensures that Maryland has the ability to respond if the Trump administration or any future federal administration seeks to further erode the basic standards of democracy.”

Congress

Capitol agenda: Senate stopgap sets up fall clash with House

Published

7 hours ago

August 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senators Monday will take up a bipartisan funding patch measure that sets them up for a clash with House lawmakers in September.

Senate appropriators released stopgap bill text Sunday that would fund federal agencies through Dec. 11 at current levels, with some exceptions. Leaders set an initial procedural vote tonight with hopes of passing the measure before the Senate breaks for recess.

But the bill includes several rebukes of President Donald Trump, and House lawmakers will need to decide when they return in the fall whether to take up the Senate’s version or try to muscle their own version forward.

Senators are also facing an immediate deadline crunch: Leaders will need bipartisan time agreements to fast-track legislation in order to accomplish their ambitious schedule this week, including for the funding patch. The chamber’s Republicans are preparing to potentially stay in session through the weekend, two people granted anonymity to disclose private scheduling told Blue Light News.

As for differences with the House: Senate Democrats with the backing of key Republicans like Appropriations Chair Susan Collins pushed for language to block Trump from finalizing a plan to put political appointees in charge of approving grants. The prohibition would last for the duration of the funding patch.

There’s also language Democrats have demanded ensuring no new funding goes to immigration enforcement agencies, since Republicans funded those programs through a party-line package this spring.

And while it incorporates some of the funding increases and authorizations the White House sought for specific programs, the Senate bill does not contain major military boosts the administration requested, including an extra $1 billion for a “Trump-class” battleship.

The differences stem from weeks of bipartisan negotiations between Collins and top Democratic appropriator Patty Murray — unlike the House-passed funding extension which Republicans advanced without consulting Democrats.

“This measure gives Congress the time we need to continue our work on bipartisan appropriations bills, which are always my strong preference for handling annual government funding,” Collins said in a statement.

The funding legislation is GOP leaders’ top priority in a busy sprint to recess, which is expected to include votes on Russia sanctions legislation, nominations, a cryptocurrency bill and potential initial votes on a college athletics bill.

And still up in the air: Whether Majority Leader John Thune brings a budget resolution for a third party-line bill to the floor or if his right flank insists on forcing their colleagues take a vote to allow the recess to start.

What else we’re watching:

— HOUSE GOP LEADERS SILENT AMID MILLER MESS: House Republican leaders aren’t yet publicly responding to domestic and child abuse allegations against Rep. Max Miller, including weighing in on whether Miller should continue to serve or run for his seat again. Spokespeople for Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team didn’t respond to a request for comment Sunday after the allegations against Miller were complicated by a statement from his former father-in-law, Sen. Bernie Moreno, who denounced the Ohio congressman for the first time. Moreno called for him to exit the House. Moreno’s statement is the first from the senator directly weighing in on Miller ahead of the Aug. 5 deadline to put someone else on the ballot.

— BLANCHE NOMINATION BACK FROM THE DEAD: Todd Blanche is suddenly back on track to be confirmed as attorney general later this week after a late-night deal Sunday. A spokesperson for Sen. John Cornyn said just before midnight he had come to terms with the Justice Department on a deal to rein in the controversial settlement agreement Trump reached with the IRS in April. With fellow holdout Sen. Thom Tillis indicating he plans to follow Cornyn’s lead, the deal appears to pave the way for a successful Senate Judiciary vote Tuesday. That could allow for Blanche’s confirmation before the summer recess begins later in the week.

Jennifer Scholtes, Jordain Carney, Mia McCarthy, Chris Marquette and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.