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\n

Special tax carve-outs for everyday Americans are suddenly all the rage in Congress<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What began with President Donald Trump\u2019s signature tax cuts has sprung copycats, with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle proposing breaks on virtually everything \u2014 from boat loan interest to selling New Jersey swag.<\/p>\n

\u201cMust be an election year,\u201d Rep. David Schweikert, a retiring tax writer.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all part of lawmakers\u2019 push to show they\u2019re responding to voters\u2019 affordability concerns ahead of the midterms, despite the mixed reviews for last year\u2019s<\/a> GOP tax cuts \u2014 even from Trump supporters.<\/p>\n

The slew of targeted tax break proposals are modeled and named after some of the best known provisions of Republicans\u2019 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, with titles like \u201cNo Taxes on Utility Bills\u201d and \u201cNo Tax on Health Care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, they\u2019ve spurred frustrations from some conservatives over clogging the tax code with smaller, specific changes, while progressives worry the breaks eat into funding dollars they\u2019d like to see go elsewhere. And fiscal hawks have sounded off on concerns over shrinking the tax base while the U.S. has a sky-high deficit.<\/p>\n

None of this is set to go away anytime soon, tax experts say, as provisions from the megabill are poised to expire in 2028. That leaves lawmakers with an opportunity to extend and create more special exemptions in addition to the tax breaks on tips, overtime, seniors and car-loan interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese policies elicited eye rolls with Republicans while they were crafting the tax bill \u2014 these were just Trumpist favors they had to include before getting to the real tax cuts,\u201d said Jessica Riedl, a former Republican tax aide now at Brookings Institution. \u201cOver time, Republicans have increasingly embraced this kind of stuff. I don\u2019t think this is a temporary trend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plus, for Democrats, there\u2019s the exemptions that possible 2028 hopefuls have been looking to enact, from Sen. Jon Ossoff\u2019s proposal to temporarily allow farmers to shield crop payments from taxes to Sen. Chris Van Hollen\u2019s plan to strike everyone earning less than $46,000 from paying federal income taxes.<\/p>\n

And both parties recognize that allowing the breaks to lapse during a presidential election year could be a risky gambit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what they think is going to happen,\u201d said Bob Lord, a vice president at Patriotic Millionaires, a group of wealthy individuals who support higher taxes, who helped devise Van Hollen\u2019s plan. \u201cIf they do away with no tax on tips, well, they can kiss the state of Nevada goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n

What else we\u2019re watching:\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 FIRST IN IC: FLANAGAN TALKS SCHUMER, PANELS: <\/b>Democratic Senate hopeful Peggy Flanagan \u2014 fresh off her primary victory in Minnesota Tuesday \u2014said she\u2019d pursue many of the same committee assignments as predecessor Sen. Tina Smith if elected. \u201cThis particular seat has a long track record of serving on the Indian Affairs Committee,\u201d Flanagan, who would be the first Native American woman elected to the chamber, said, adding she \u201cwould look forward to serving on that committee and bringing my lived experience and work in strengthening tribal government relations to that table.\u201d Flanagan also flagged Agriculture, Banking and Health, adding \u201cthere are a lot of priorities for Minnesotans that go right through that committee.\u201d Flanagan also declined to back Chuck Schumer\u00a0<\/b>as the party\u2019s leader should Democrats retake the chamber, saying she was \u201cgrateful\u201d for his work but, \u201cI think it\u2019s time for us to have a new voice in that role.\u201d
\u00a0<\/b>
\u2014 REPUBLICANS TRY TO KEEP THEIR FRAUD FIGHTING DREAMS ALIVE: <\/b>House Republicans are hoping Vice President JD Vance\u2019s<\/b> personal appeal to the conference to tackle alleged abuse of safety-net programs will push the issue back to the forefront of the GOP\u2019s already-long priority list. But many are skeptical any such legislation will<\/u><\/a> ultimately reach the president\u2019s desk. Finding ways to cut government waste and fraud across Medicare, Medicaid and federal food assistance programs was a top priority for House Republicans, who set out earlier this year to pass another party-line reconciliation package centralizing the effort. Many believed the fraud issue would speak to voters\u2019 larger concerns about affordability, since it would ostensibly involve returning lost funds to government programs.
\u00a0<\/b>
Brian Faler, Mia McCarthy and Robert King contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Special tax carve-outs for everyday Americans are suddenly all the rage in Congress. What began with President Donald Trump\u2019s signature tax cuts has sprung copycats, with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle proposing breaks on virtually everything \u2014 from boat loan interest to selling New Jersey swag. \u201cMust be an election year,\u201d Rep. David […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}