Hill Republicans have formidable legislative plans for the primary months of complete GOP management of presidency underneath President-elect Trump, with a sweeping tax bundle on the high of the to-do checklist.
Whereas Republicans aren’t but formally projected to win sufficient seats to safe the Home, it appears to be like doubtless that they are going to preserve a slim majority.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has been working with Senate Republican leaders and Trump for months on gadgets they will shortly push by means of Congress within the first 100 days underneath Trump. Each Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), two of the contenders to switch Senate GOP Chief Mitch McConnell (Ky.), have been concerned within the discussions.
The purpose is to keep away from the disorganization and clashes that emerged regardless of a GOP trifecta when Trump took workplace in 2017 and thwarted his legislative agenda. Onerous-line conservatives within the Home Freedom Caucus, for example, helped derail Trump’s early try to repeal the Reasonably priced Care Act.
This time, Republicans imagine they’re extra ready to execute. Home Majority Chief Steve Scalise (R-La.) stated in a latest letter to colleagues that whereas Trump could make many adjustments by means of govt motion, Republicans hope to “lock in” the insurance policies.
The GOP leaders will goal to go a lot of their agenda by means of the Senate’s price range reconciliation course of, a particular budgetary rule that may fast-track laws and bypass the specter of a Democratic filibuster.
Johnson and different GOP leaders have talked in speeches and on the marketing campaign path about what they hope to deal with within the first-100-days agenda. Among the plans are positive to immediate intraparty coverage clashes.
Listed here are a few of Republicans’ high legislative priorities underneath a brand new Trump administration.
Lengthen Trump tax cuts
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) arrives for a press convention after a closed-door Home Republican Convention assembly on Tuesday, April 16, 2024.
Key elements of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), Trump’s signature legislative achievement from his first time period, are set to run out on the finish of 2025. Republicans hope to not solely make the cuts everlasting, however use the laws to make different adjustments.
In a speech to the America First Coverage Institute on September, Johnson stated Republicans deliberate to restore rapid expensing for analysis and growth prices; guarantee a robust Overseas Derived Intangible Revenue incentive to “encourage U.S. ownership of intellectual property”; and restore the one hundred pc expensing provision that started to section out after 2022.
Johnson additionally voiced assist for a “strong Child Tax Credit,” saying that “unlike the Democrats’ proposal, we will ensure that our tax policy respects the dignity of work, and it doesn’t pay people for staying out of the workforce” — a reference to having work necessities for recipients.
Among the tax coverage particulars, nonetheless, can be divisive within the Home GOP.
Republicans from high-tax states have lengthy wished to repeal the $10,000 state and native tax (SALT) deduction cap that Trump signed into regulation with the TCJA, and that different Republicans have championed.
And Trump in September signaled openness to a reversal on the SALT deduction cap, saying he would “get SALT back, lower your taxes, and so much more.”
Fund border safety measures and wall
Former President Donald Trump speaks alongside the southern border with Mexico, Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024, in Sierra Vista, Ariz., as Paul Perez, president of the Nationwide Border Patrol Council listens.
Scalise previewed Republicans’ plans for addressing the border in a letter to Home GOP colleagues searching for assist to stay Home majority chief.
“There is much President Trump can do through executive action to provide immediate relief. He can secure the border by ending catch and release, reinstating Remain in Mexico and stopping the current flagrant abuses of the asylum and parole programs,” Scalise stated.
However congressional Republicans may have a serious function in funding Trump’s applications.
“We will surge resources to the southern border to build the Trump Border Wall, acquire new detection technologies, bolster our Border Patrol, and stop the flow of illegal immigration,” Scalise stated.
Johnson additionally touched on addressing immigration by means of the tax code in his speech to the America First Coverage Institute, however didn’t get into particulars.
“In addition to securing the border, we can use the tax code to deter illegal immigration and eliminate existing loopholes that reward illegal immigration,” Johnson stated.
Repeal elements of Inflation Discount Act
Majority Chief Steve Scalise (R-La.) addresses reporters after a closed-door Home Republican Convention assembly on Wednesday, June 12, 2024.
GOP leaders have forecast their plans to repeal elements of President Biden’s signature Inflation Discount Act, significantly funds for local weather applications.
Within the letter to colleagues, Scalise stated that Republicans plan to repeal “harmful slush funds and policies Democrats jammed through in their so-called ‘Inflation Reduction Act.’”
And Johnson stated in his America First Coverage Institute speech that Republicans would “roll back the Green New Deal regulations and put America back in a place of American energy dominance.”
However Republicans aren’t aiming to fully repeal the regulation. Johnson advised CNBC in September that he would take a “scalpel and not a sledgehammer” to Biden’s clear vitality and financial bundle, saying there are “a few provisions in there that have helped overall.”
Some Republicans symbolize districts that immediately profit from the inexperienced vitality tax credit within the Inflation Discount Act. And in August, a gaggle of 18 Home Republicans despatched a letter to Johnson asking him to maintain these tax credit if Republicans received management of presidency.
One $27 billion program eyed by Republicans has already distributed some funds to localities and nonprofits.
Broaden college alternative and tackle universities
A view of Harvard Yard on the campus of Harvard College on July 8, 2020, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Home Republicans are signaling that they are going to go measures supportive of college alternative measures — the observe of permitting college students and households to make use of public funds for personal or different college applications.
“We can reform our education system by maximizing school choice for parents and holding woke university administrators accountable,” Johnson stated in his America First Coverage Institute speech.
One invoice that aimed to increase college alternative, the Academic Selection for Youngsters Act, superior out of the Home Methods and Means Committee earlier this yr. That laws, in response to the workplace of invoice sponsor Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), would “provide a charitable donation incentive for individuals and businesses to fund scholarship awards for students which would cover expenses related to K-12 public and private education.”
Scalise additionally referenced college alternative in his letter, saying that Republicans will go measures “prioritizing parents and choice, not Union Bosses, in their children’s education.”
Republicans are additionally not carried out with their campaign towards college directors, and are aiming to construct on the momentum of Home GOP convention Chair Elise Stefanik’s (N.Y.) fierce questioning of the presidents of Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise and the College of Pennsylvania about their insurance policies on antisemitism final yr.
Home Republicans in September handed the Finish Woke Greater Training Act, which included a requirement that schools undertake free speech insurance policies as a situation of receiving Title IV funds, amongst different measures.
Johnson’s workplace stated Home Republicans plan to “hold woke and elite universities accountable for out-of-control costs,” and Scalise stated Republicans will “[hold] colleges and universities accountable for the wave of virulent antisemitism some have tolerated.”
