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Congress

Trump backs key Senate tax plan strategy in struggle with House

Published

2 years ago

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President Donald Trump indicated to GOP senators during a White House meeting Thursday that he supports using an accounting method that would treat trillions of dollars in tax cuts in a massive GOP package as costing nothing, according to three senators who attended the meeting and three other people familiar with the conversation.

“If you are going to make the tax code permanent, by definition it’s going to be with current policy,” said Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who affirmed that Trump is on board with the accounting tactic. “The aperture is opened up a bit in thinking more broadly around how we continue to find additional reductions in federal spending.”

House and Senate Republicans are split on the controversial accounting tactic, though Speaker Mike Johnson is increasingly open to using it. The move would make it easier for GOP lawmakers to make the math work on their costly plan.

But many hard-liners are suspicious of the tactic and want to stick with Congress’s traditional accounting method, which would show that extending the tax cuts, and adding other provisions Trump wants, would cost trillions of dollars.

Settling the matter will be key as the House and Senate try to reconcile vast differences in their approaches to the massive Trump agenda bill spanning border, energy, taxes and defense spending. But it is likely to run into trouble with deficit hawks, especially in the House, who insist that tax cuts must be accompanied by spending reductions.

Trump also reiterated he wants the 2017 tax cuts he presided over to be extended permanently. And, he raised his Gold Visa card concept as a way to pay for the vast package, along with tariffs and other options.

The GOP senators in the room also discussed the politically complex issue of raising the debt ceiling, which Trump has pushed to be in the package because he doesn’t want to negotiate a separate deal with Democrats.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said he made clear in the meeting he still wants incredibly steep spending cuts in order to back a debt limit increase, adding Trump was receptive to his pitch to pare back a vast swath of federal spending to pre-COVID levels.

“I don’t know that we solved anything. We got what we needed — just some kind of direction and feel for where the president wants all this to land,” Senate GOP leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters when he returned to the Capitol.

The Republicans who met with Trump on Thursday are all members of the Senate Finance Committee who are trying to work through a host of complex and arduous tax talks in order to decide what they can fit into their party-line bill.

“It’s kind of along the lines of what we’ve been talking about for some time,” Thune said.

Sen. Thom Tillis said the conversation with the president helped to act as “a funnel” for the vast list of tax policies that GOP senators are trying to squeeze into the package.

But some senators in the meeting appeared less enthusiastic that they had made any major progress.

“Talk, talk, talk, talk,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said. “Just like the last 10 weeks.”

House and Senate Republicans are stuck in an increasingly bitter impasse over how to advance Trump’s vast legislative agenda and how quickly to move.

Many House Republicans were livid earlier this week when Tillis emerged from a meeting of Senate Finance Republicans on Monday evening and suggested August was the real timeline for passing a budget reconciliation bill, citing the tax talks.

Heading to the White House meeting on Thursday, Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo again declined to predict any timeline for the Congress to advance or pass the package and its many tax provisions.

Other members of his panel hoped the meeting with Trump and his advisers would help start to bridge the divide between the two chambers — something Trump has struggled to do.

“I’m not even going to joke about it,” the normally soft-spoken Crapo said, with a smile.

Thune has been organizing meetings all week with small groups of his conference as he and GOP leaders try to hear from a cross-section of GOP senators about what they want to see in a reconciliation bill, which would allow Republicans to short-circuit a Democratic filibuster in the Senate.

Those meetings, according to senators in attendance, have focused on the tax provisions — including measuring support for using the current policy baseline accounting method to make the extension of the Trump-era tax cuts appear to cost nothing.

Senate Republicans are also using the meetings to discuss how big they should go on spending cuts and outline the challenges of the major task ahead.

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Congress

Capitol agenda: How Warren could link arms with Trump’s GOP

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6 hours ago

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October 9, 2026

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren may get her clearest shot yet to take on corporate America next year — thanks to the once unthinkable help of Republicans.

The Massachusetts Democrat is poised to chair Senate Banking if the party takes back the chamber. And while the progressive has long been a boogeyman to corporate America, lobbyists worry she’ll have powerful backup thanks to the surge of populist Republicans eager to take big swings at Wall Street and Big Tech.

One longtime financial industry lobbyist, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said Warren “has a streak that is not just wanting to be a progressive gadfly, but to actually reach across the aisle to push for policy ideas.” There is “absolutely” reason for concern, the person said.

Atop the panel, Warren would also have a strong position to shape the 2028 presidential debates on both sides.

“There’s very little doubt that the agenda of the Senate Banking Committee is going to overlap substantially with the core issues that the candidates in the 2028 election cycle are going to be grappling with,” said Dennis Kelleher, the outgoing leader of the progressive group Better Markets.

As Banking chair, Warren is expected to try to recruit Republicans in a crackdown on artificial intelligence — specifically restrictions on chip giant Nvidia’s exports to China, which already has some GOP support — and a follow-up of this year’s bipartisan housing law that sought to rein in private equity’s role in the market, according to people close to the senator.

Some of President Donald Trump’s own populist ideas, like credit card interest rate caps and limits on stock buybacks for defense contractors, would provide fertile ground for Warren.

But Trump would also likely be Warren’s biggest obstacle, as he’s been resistant to embrace policy overlaps with her. He’s also been resistant to any AI restrictions.

Warren’s approach also threatens to expose rifts between GOP populists who have been ascendent under Trump and more mainstream conservatives.

Asked about the possibility of a Chair Warren, Sen. Mike Rounds, a more moderate South Dakota Republican, said he doesn’t “think anything would get done except lots of investigations and lots of accusations.”

What else we’re watching: 

— LAWMAKERS CLAMOR FOR GAO v. TRUMP — Lawmakers are desperate for a government watchdog to step up and help them in their fight against the Trump administration over control of federal cash. The independent Government Accountability Office concluded earlier this week that the White House illegally withheld more than $1 billion for education and health care research programs — the latest in more than a half-dozen such findings GAO has published since the start of Trump’s second term. But the agency has yet to use its unique power to take the president to court to challenge those “impoundments,” and lawmakers who are tired of the administration running roughshod over their funding prerogatives want GAO to act.

 

— MURPHY’S DEFENSE FUNDING ULTIMATUM — Democrats should not approve Pentagon funding or the annual defense policy bill if they control Congress next year unless those bills would hasten the end of the Iran war, Sen. Chris Murphy told reporters Thursday. “We should make the end of the war a priority,” said the Foreign Relations Democrat who was returning from a trip to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Murphy also accused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and officials of attempting a “cover-up” of the war’s damage and obscuring its true cost after he was denied entry on a base in Qatar. Given the damage to bases in the region, Murphy also told reporters that the U.S. should “reconsider its footprint” in the Middle East.

Jasper Goodman, Jennifer Scholtes and Connor O’Brien contributed to this report.

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Even some Republicans want this watchdog agency to sue Trump

Published

6 hours ago

on

October 9, 2026

By

Members of Congress are desperate for backup in their battle with the Trump administration over control of federal cash. The oversight agency that would lean into that fight is sitting on its hands.

The independent Government Accountability Office concluded earlier this week that the White House illegally withheld more than $1 billion for education and health care research programs — the latest in more than a half-dozen such findings GAO has published since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.

But the agency has yet to use its unique power to take the president to court to challenge those “impoundments,” and lawmakers who are tired of the administration running roughshod over their funding prerogatives want GAO to act.

There’s one problem: GAO is currently run by an interim director, acting Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown, because the Senate has yet to confirm a long-term replacement following her predecessor’s retirement last year. And lawmakers fear she’s reluctant to exercise her temporary authority to take such dramatic legal action.

“They are empowered to sue,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters last week. “I think the biggest problem is that we have an acting director of the GAO, who understandably is wary of suing the administration without direct congressional approval.”

The recent rulings came on the heels of Trump’s unilateral cancellation of $810 million in other congressionally approved spending the previous week — which GAO quickly deemed illegal — as well as his decision to allow hundreds of millions more to expire as the fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

The search for a permanent GAO leader, meanwhile, appears to be at a standstill. A designated group of 10 senior lawmakers is supposed to be searching for replacement candidates to recommend for Trump’s nomination, but the members have yet to meet — nine months since former Comptroller General Gene Dodaro departed at the end of his 15-year term.

“We would like a GAO director who’s a man or a woman of integrity and going to do the job that needs to be done. That’s our focus,” said Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, who is part of the selection group as the top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

He said it was accurate that the group has made no progress toward recommending nominees.

The Washington Sun reported Thursday that the administration has floated the idea of Trump nominating Eric Ueland, a top official at the White House budget office and former longtime Senate aide, to head GAO. Blue Light News has not independently confirmed the potential nomination.

If Ueland is nominated, however, there is no guarantee he would have the votes for confirmation in a narrowly divided Senate, given the perception of his loyalty to the president and doubt he would challenge Trump’s funding moves.

In the meantime, lawmakers in both parties are urging the acting director to sue, while a GAO spokesperson maintains that the agency “has not made a decision to file any lawsuits at this time” and that the acting comptroller general “legally exercises all the functions and duties” of the role.

The fact that GAO is operating without a Senate-confirmed leader “is definitely stifling their ability to hold the administration accountable,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said in an interview, adding that he believed Dodaro was “clearly building toward making a case” prior to his retirement.

Dodaro said in an interview during his final days at GAO that he considered a lawsuit against the Trump administration “a last resort.” He explained that “in every case we’ve identified so far, people were already suing” and that “Congress has the ability to correct these things and to deal with the distribution of funds.”

What the former inspector general did not expect, however, is the Supreme Court’s suggestion last fall that GAO is the only entity with standing to sue the Trump administration for violating the decades-old Impoundment Control Act, which was designed to ensure presidents spend all the money Congress approves.

Dodaro said he was “surprised” by that suggestion, given his belief that “the law is very clear that GAO’s ability to sue doesn’t preclude anybody else from suing.”

A year later, the president has continued to flout Congress’ authority to dictate how federal dollars get spent. Top administration officials and some Republicans in Congress have publicly belittled GAO as a partisan and noncredible oversight agency since Trump’s return to office.

And after the federal watchdog concluded last week that Trump’s recent funding cancellation is unconstitutional, White House budget director Russ Vought claimed on social media that GAO makes its “legal assessments based on whether Democrats are in the White House.”

Potentially bolstering GAO’s arguments in a lawsuit, lawmakers added provisions to the government funding bills Trump signed into law this year designed to protect their own power of the purse, though Republicans bucked Democratic demands to enact the most aggressive constraints — including to block Trump’s ability to cancel federal dollars at the end of the fiscal year.

Some Republicans are now embracing more stringent methods to stifle Trump’s funding moves, however, after he slashed hundreds of millions dollars through the “pocket rescissions” tactic last month.

“I’m very disappointed in their action here, and it will have to be rectified,” Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, said about Trump’s latest funding cancellation in an interview.

But he also said he doesn’t know if GAO or another entity should sue: “I’m not sure who should do it. All I know is I want a different result than what we have right now.”

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Congress

This watchdog can bark. Congress wants it to bite.

Published

9 hours ago

on

October 9, 2026

By

Members of Congress are desperate for backup in their battle with the Trump administration over control of federal cash. The oversight agency that would lean into that fight is sitting on its hands.

The independent Government Accountability Office concluded earlier this week that the White House illegally withheld more than $1 billion for education and health care research programs — the latest in more than a half-dozen such findings GAO has published since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.

But the agency has yet to use its unique power to take the president to court to challenge those “impoundments,” and lawmakers who are tired of the administration running roughshod over their funding prerogatives want GAO to act.

There’s one problem: GAO is currently run by an interim director, acting Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown, because the Senate has yet to confirm a long-term replacement following her predecessor’s retirement last year. And lawmakers fear she’s reluctant to exercise her temporary authority to take such dramatic legal action.

“They are empowered to sue,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters last week. “I think the biggest problem is that we have an acting director of the GAO, who understandably is wary of suing the administration without direct congressional approval.”

The recent rulings came on the heels of Trump’s unilateral cancellation of $810 million in other congressionally approved spending the previous week — which GAO quickly deemed illegal — as well as his decision to allow hundreds of millions more to expire as the fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

The search for a permanent GAO leader, meanwhile, appears to be at a standstill. A designated group of 10 senior lawmakers is supposed to be searching for replacement candidates to recommend for Trump’s nomination, but the members have yet to meet — nine months since former Comptroller General Gene Dodaro departed at the end of his 15-year term.

“We would like a GAO director who’s a man or a woman of integrity and going to do the job that needs to be done. That’s our focus,” said Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, who is part of the selection group as the top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

He said it was accurate that the group has made no progress toward recommending nominees.

The Washington Sun reported Thursday that the administration has floated the idea of Trump nominating Eric Ueland, a top official at the White House budget office and former longtime Senate aide, to head GAO. Blue Light News has not independently confirmed the potential nomination.

If Ueland is nominated, however, there is no guarantee he would have the votes for confirmation in a narrowly divided Senate, given the perception of his loyalty to the president and doubt he would challenge Trump’s funding moves.

In the meantime, lawmakers in both parties are urging the acting director to sue, while a GAO spokesperson maintains that the agency “has not made a decision to file any lawsuits at this time” and that the acting comptroller general “legally exercises all the functions and duties” of the role.

The fact that GAO is operating without a Senate-confirmed leader “is definitely stifling their ability to hold the administration accountable,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said in an interview, adding that he believed Dodaro was “clearly building toward making a case” prior to his retirement.

Dodaro said in an interview during his final days at GAO that he considered a lawsuit against the Trump administration “a last resort.” He explained that “in every case we’ve identified so far, people were already suing” and that “Congress has the ability to correct these things and to deal with the distribution of funds.”

What the former inspector general did not expect, however, is the Supreme Court’s suggestion last fall that GAO is the only entity with standing to sue the Trump administration for violating the decades-old Impoundment Control Act, which was designed to ensure presidents spend all the money Congress approves.

Dodaro said he was “surprised” by that suggestion, given his belief that “the law is very clear that GAO’s ability to sue doesn’t preclude anybody else from suing.”

A year later, the president has continued to flout Congress’ authority to dictate how federal dollars get spent. Top administration officials and some Republicans in Congress have publicly belittled GAO as a partisan and noncredible oversight agency since Trump’s return to office.

And after the federal watchdog concluded last week that Trump’s recent funding cancellation is unconstitutional, White House budget director Russ Vought claimed on social media that GAO makes its “legal assessments based on whether Democrats are in the White House.”

Potentially bolstering GAO’s arguments in a lawsuit, lawmakers added provisions to the government funding bills Trump signed into law this year designed to protect their own power of the purse, though Republicans bucked Democratic demands to enact the most aggressive constraints — including to block Trump’s ability to cancel federal dollars at the end of the fiscal year.

Some Republicans are now embracing more stringent methods to stifle Trump’s funding moves, however, after he slashed hundreds of millions dollars through the “pocket rescissions” tactic last month.

“I’m very disappointed in their action here, and it will have to be rectified,” Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, said about Trump’s latest funding cancellation in an interview.

But he also said he doesn’t know if GAO or another entity should sue: “I’m not sure who should do it. All I know is I want a different result than what we have right now.”

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