Congress

Trump advisers, Congress discuss tariff legislation

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

Advisers close to President-elect Donald Trump have been in discussions with House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) on a broad tax package that is partially paid for by tariffs approved by Congress, according to two people familiar with the conversations who were granted anonymity to describe the internal discussions.

As part of those conversations, staffers and advisers close to the Trump team have also investigated whether House rules need to be changed to use tariffs as offsets for tax cuts, those people say.

A Ways and Means Committee spokesperson declined to comment.

The discussions come as Republicans are gearing up to pass a massive tax bill, which would include $4.6 trillion of expiring Trump tax cuts and potentially several other tax proposals floated by Trump on the campaign trail. They include Trump’s ideas to remove “tax on tips” and eliminate taxes on Social Security, among many others.

Trump repeatedly pledged on the campaign trail to use tariffs to help pay for those tax cuts, and the conversations signal that congressional Republicans could be open to imposing tariffs on Trump’s behalf via legislation.

However, Congress has not raised tariffs through legislation in almost 100 years — through the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 — and that has led to some confusion over how lawmakers should handle the issue as part of a broader tax package, the people said.

“We’re likely to see in a reconciliation bill … that’s raising revenue through tariffs on imports and taking that savings and using it to cut taxes and create incentives for domestic production,” said a person directly familiar with conversations between Trump’s advisers and Congress.

Reconciliation — a budget procedure possible only if Republicans sweep Congress — would allow Republicans to pass the tax cuts and tariffs without Democratic support and with only simple majorities in both chambers. But those rules and other House rules around bills that lose revenue can be exceedingly complex.

It’s very unlikely that tariffs could help pay for a significant portion of any tax cuts, though — despite Trump’s flirtation with the idea of using tariffs to completely eliminate the income tax. In fiscal year 2020, U.S. Customs collected $74.4 billion in tariffs, accounting for only roughly 2.2 percent of total federal revenue, according to the Congressional Research Service.

According to estimates by the Tax Foundation, the U.S. would need to implement an across-the-board tariff hike of 69.9 percent to completely replace income taxes.

Congress

Trump-aligned parents rally behind kids’ online safety rules

Published

6 hours ago

July 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Parents’ rights groups aligned with the MAGA movement and other socially conservative groups are imploring congressional leaders to enact strict rules that aim to prevent online dangers for kids.

They join a chorus of more progressive parent and survivor groups urging lawmakers ahead of an upcoming Senate Commerce online kids’ safety markup to enact robust and clear “duty of care” requirements that would legally compel technology companies to prevent harm to children.

In a July 30 letter to Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), shared first with Blue Light News, the groups demanded specific standards that would require technology companies to “truly stand with, not against parents.”

So-called duty of care requirements have emerged as a central battleground in negotiations over kids’ online safety legislation. The provision would mandate tech companies to take reasonable steps to prevent and mitigate specific harms to minors on their platforms and would give regulators a legal basis to hold companies accountable if they fail to do so.

“[W]e write as parents, pro-family leaders, survivors, and child advocates to implore you to act in a way that truly empowers parents to protect our children, and to resist the rather loud voices who say that immunity for Big Tech and evisceration of state efforts in this space is somehow pro-parent,” the groups wrote. “It is not.”

They also urged lawmakers to expand on state laws rather than override them. Preemption provisions have become much more broadly unpopular in the year since Cruz tried — and failed — to attach a 10-year moratorium on the ability of states to set their own artificial intelligence laws in the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“States are standing with parents and children,” the letter reads. “Your committee must build on that work, not tear it down.”

The groups signing the letter, led by Institute for Families and Technology, include MAGA-aligned Moms for Liberty, Louisiana Family Forum, South Dakota Family Voice and the Family Policy Alliance, a conservative Christian group influencing state policies.

Cruz this week postponed a broader artificial intelligence markup tentatively planned for next week until September. Instead, next week, he’s going to take up several measures on kids’ safety and chatbots.

Cruz, in an interview Wednesday, did not rule out preemption provisions in next week’s markup, telling Blue Light News, “Those are all active topics under negotiation.”

Spokespeople for Cruz and Cantwell did not return requests for comment.

The letter comes as right-leaning and family organizations have a heightened awareness of kids’ safety around technology. In fact, the issue was a big topic at last week’s SoCon Con, where there were multiple panels and speakers on kids and tech, including one on keeping kids safe and how to “beat Big Tech.”

“This is new substantive engagement that didn’t really exist before,” said a social conservative advocate granted anonymity to discuss private coalition discussions. “There’s this tipping point that is happening where these groups represent large populations at the state level and saying this is an issue that’s important to us and we’re going to engage as family groups.”

Congress

Top senators consider blocking Trump’s grant shakeup in spending stopgap

Published

7 hours ago

July 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate leaders are deciding whether to block President Donald Trump from finalizing a plan to put political appointees in charge of approving grants, Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins said Thursday.

“I have made very clear that I oppose the new rule,” the Maine Republican told reporters. “So I hope we’ll take advantage of this opportunity to delay it. But that’s up to the leadership.”

Senate leaders are working to finalize a bipartisan stopgap bill to keep federal agencies funded beyond the Sept. 30 government shutdown deadline, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune reiterated Thursday that he hopes to pass the measure next week.

The South Dakota Republican did not say, however, whether the legislation will stifle the Trump administration’s proposed regulation to do away with the peer-review process for awarding billions of dollars each year to state and local governments, community groups, education institutions and nonprofit organizations.

“There are a handful of issues still under consideration,” Thune told reporters Thursday afternoon. “And I’m hoping that both sides can come together and figure the last couple of remaining issues out.”

Blocking the Trump proposal is among the demands Democratic senators have included in their offers to Republicans in funding negotiations. Every Senate Democrat called earlier this month for White House budget director Russ Vought to rescind the proposal.

Some Republican senators, including Collins and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, have also been publicly supportive of heading off the regulation the Office of Management and Budget is moving to finalize as soon as this summer.

“There have been thousands, hundreds of thousands, of comments against it,” Collins said Thursday, noting that she urged Vought to hold off weeks ago, while Murkowski said that she thinks White House officials “need to pull back” on the plan.

“Everybody’s coming unglued about this,” the Alaska Republican told reporters, noting outrage from nonprofit groups, community leaders and tribal organizations. “When you start issuing grants based on political connections, that’s not good for the system here.”

Democrats are also pushing to use the upcoming funding bill to stop the Trump administration from unilaterally canceling funding Congress has approved and to reverse the cancellation of grants the Trump administration recently admitted in court that it terminated based “solely on the political identity” of the state leaders where the grants went. Republicans rejected Democrats’ calls to do the same on prior bills.

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

Congress

Blanche’s big meeting

Published

8 hours ago

July 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche met Thursday afternoon with Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — the key holdouts on his nomination as permanent AG. A spokesperson for Cornyn and a second person granted anonymity to describe the private meeting confirmed the discussion.

It took place just hours after President Donald Trump indicated he would not give in to demands made by Cornyn and Tillis to modify his May settlement agreement with the IRS — a central demand of the two senators to allow Blanche through the Senate Judiciary Committee.