Congress
White House ramps up sales pitch for Trump tax plan
The White House is stepping up its efforts to sell the GOP megabill ahead of an impending Senate vote.
The legislation is far from finalized, but the Council of Economic Advisers is sending its first analysis of the Senate bill to Congress Wednesday. The report obtained by POLITICO is based on the Senate Finance Committee draft released last week.
The analysis contrasts the economic and fiscal impact of the party’s signature domestic policy legislation with letting President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts expire at the end of the year — a cliff Senate GOP leaders and the White House are leaning into as they try to sway their holdouts.
“The [One Big Beautiful Bill Act] will establish a strong foundation for economic prosperity by increasing investment, raising GDP, and boosting resources for American families in the form of higher wages and a lower tax burden,” the CEA wrote in its analysis.
The Senate tax plan would create more than $100 billion in investment and more than 1 million new jobs over the 10-year budget window, according to the report. It’s also estimating the economic growth sparked by the tax plan would create between $2.1 to $2.3 trillion in deficit reduction, as well as help decrease the overall debt.
The analysis is significantly rosier than projections from most other economists, who doubt that the Republican plan will do much for growth because the tax breaks for businesses — which have the most potential economic oomph — are relatively small, especially compared to the 2017 bill. Their tax package this time around is much more focused on cutting taxes for individuals while piling on debt that most economists believe will push up interest rates and create a drag on growth.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office hasn’t yet released a full estimate for the Senate legislation, but it recently analyzed the economic effects of the House-passed bill and concluded that any government revenues sparked by growth due to the bill would be swamped by higher debt-service costs prompted by higher interest rates.
In a boon for Majority Leader John Thune, Finance Chair Mike Crapo and other Finance Committee Republicans, the White House analysis found that making some of the business tax cuts permanent would boost investment and increase wages. Permanency is a top priority for Thune, Crapo and others, who have made the case to both the House and the White House that it is worth including even though it comes with a higher price tag.
Senate Republicans are likely to use the analysis to tout their legislation — and to rebut CBO when it releases its own findings. The CEA gave a similarly positive overview of the House’s bill earlier this year, which Speaker Mike Johnson has frequently used to argue that the bill won’t add to the national debt. That has not prevented House fiscal hawks from finding fault in it, even as they voted for it; Thune & Co. are facing similar doubts from their own conservative bloc.
Brian Faler contributed to this report.
House Republicans have advanced a bill that would prohibit members of Congress and their family members from trading on certain Washington-focused prediction markets.
The House Administration Committee’s GOP members on Wednesday voted along party lines in favor of the legislation, which proposes to bar lawmakers, their spouses and their dependent children from participating on prediction markets that are based on the outcome of elections or government actions.
It marks the latest in Capitol Hill’s efforts to curb the threat of insider trading on the prediction markets — a risk that has burst into the spotlight in recent months after a series of well-timed trades around the capture of then-Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, Google’s search results and the Iran war. Earlier this year, the Senate banned its members and their staffs from trading on the prediction markets altogether, effective immediately.
And yet, the House Administration Committee vote also revealed a fracture within the House over how far to go in clamping down on lawmakers’ use of the prediction markets. Democrats opposed the bill, saying it didn’t go far enough, while Republicans supported it.
Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, who is the committee’s top Democrat, argued that the legislation is “so filled with loopholes that it looks more like a sieve than a bill.” Instead of passing such a bill, he said the House should follow the Senate’s lead and approve a new and broader resolution aimed at prediction market use among members and their staffs.
“The Senate did it in a matter of minutes — no six-month grace period, no procedurally laborious process,” Morelle said. “They just went to the floor with a two-page resolution and banned it all unanimously. We should do the same.”
House Administration Chair Bryan Steil, who introduced the bill, hit back at his Democratic counterpart’s concerns by questioning why members’ families shouldn’t be allowed to bet on sports through the prediction markets — but can through sportsbooks or casinos.
The Wisconsin Republican pointed to a hypothetical scenario where a member’s child is at college and bets on a sporting event through a prediction market platform. That situation, he said, could be covered by a broader prohibition.
Steil, rather, said his bill is aimed at addressing public policy- and election-focused markets.
“Lawmakers elect to serve the American people, not to enrich themselves by wagering on outcomes from the decisions they make,” he said. “We have a real opportunity to restore trust in Congress by taking necessary steps to eliminate even the appearance of impropriety.”
House Republican leaders canceled plans to advance a procedural measure Wednesday that would set up passage of two fiscal 2027 appropriations bills and other legislation this week, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the decision ahead of a public announcement.
The decision comes amid pressure from GOP hard-liners to prioritize passage of the SAVE America Act, a Republican elections bill that has stalled in the Senate — and after President Donald Trump refused to sign a high-profile bipartisan housing bill passed Tuesday, also in a bid to get the elections bill moving.
Speaker Mike Johnson and other leaders are expected to keep members in Washington for now while they determine next steps, the people said.
Hours after Democratic socialist candidates swept to victory in New York primary races, Republicans celebrated those victories as a boon for their own party as it struggles against headwinds from the Iran war and cost of living issues ahead of the November midterms.
Inside a closed-door House GOP meeting Wednesday morning, the head of the Republican campaign arm said the victories of candidates backed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani offered an opportunity for GOP House candidates to draw a sharp contrast.
Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina said “Democrats have a Bolshevik revolution going on in their primaries,” according to three people in the room granted anonymity to discuss the private event.
Speaker Mike Johnson also delivered remarks to Republicans setting the stakes of the election after the “radical” left-wing wins and urging Republicans to dig in and raise money to defeat Democrats this fall. He received a standing ovation, the people in the room said.
Hudson said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will take the socialists’ wins as a sign he needs to navigate further to the left. There will be no cooperation with Republicans, he added.
Other Republicans publicly seized on the left-wing triumphs Wednesday, including Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio — who said “the lesson is clear: if Republicans don’t act now, we will lose this country as we know it.”
“We need to be clear about what we stand for,” he wrote on X. “Closed borders, secure elections, economic prosperity for all Americans, and, most of all, proudly protecting the American way of life against socialism.”
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