WASHINGTON — A tax credit for millionaires, and almost everyone else.
End of government in the COVID-19 era grants that some Americans have used to buy health insurance.
Limits on food stamps, including for women and children, and other safety net programs. A throwback to the Biden era green energy programs. Mass deportations. Government job cuts to “drain the swamp”.
After winning the election and coming to power, the Republicans are planning An ambitious 100-day agenda with the president Donald Trump In the White House and in a majority of GOP lawmakers to accomplish their policy goals.
Topping the list is a $4 billion renewal plan when it expires GOP tax cutsThe signature domestic achievement of Trump’s first term and the issue that could define his return to the White House.
“What we’re focused on right now is to be ready, Day 1,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said after a recent meeting with GOP colleagues to chart the way forward.
Emerging policies will revive longstanding debates about America prioritiestrivial and appropriate differences in his income size and scope of his government, especially in the face of the growing federal deficit now approaching 2 billion dollars a year.
The debates will test whether Trump and his Republican allies can achieve the real results that voters wanted, needed or supported when they gave the party a vote. Control of Congress and the White House.
“The past is really the foreword here,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, recalling the 2017 tax debate.
Trump’s first term was defined by those tax cuts, which Republicans passed in Congress and signed only after promising to “repeal and replace” Democratic President Barack Obama’s health care law during the initial campaign, when the child failed in the famous down vote. by then-Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
The GOP majority in Congress quickly pushed through the tax cuts, assembling and passing a multi-trillion dollar package by the end of the year.
Since Trump signed those cuts into law, the biggest benefits have accrued to higher-income households. The top 100 percent — those earning nearly $1 million and more — received an income tax cut of about $60,000, while those with lower incomes got a few hundred dollars less, according to the Tax Policy Center and other groups. Some ended up paying the same.
“The big economic story in the U.S. is growing income inequality,” Owens said. “And that’s really, interestingly, a tax story.”
To prepare for Trump’s return, congressional Republicans have been meeting privately for months to discuss proposals with the president-elect to extend and improve those tax cuts, some of which would expire in 2025.
This means maintaining a range of tax brackets and a standardized deduction for individual income earners, along with existing rates for entities such as law firms, medical practices, or pass-through companies that treat their earnings as individual income.
Normally, the price of tax cuts would be prohibitive. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that keeping the expiring provisions in place would add about $4 trillion to the deficit over a decade.
Adding to that, Trump wants to get involved his priorities in the tax package, the reduction of the corporate internal rate, now 21% from the 2017 law, to 15%, and the removal of individual taxes on tips and overtime.
But Avik Roy, president of the Equal Opportunity Research Foundation, said it’s “just nonsense” to blame the tax cuts on the nation’s income inequality because tax filers have benefited up and down the income spectrum. Instead, he points to other factors, including the Federal Reserve’s historically low interest rates, which make borrowing affordable, including for the wealthy.
“Americans don’t care whether Elon Musk is rich or not,” Roy said. “What they care about is, what are you doing to improve their lives?”
Typically, lawmakers want the cost of a policy change to be offset by budget revenue or cuts elsewhere. But in this case, there is virtually no agreed-upon revenue or spending cuts in the $6 trillion annual budget that could cover such a staggering price.
Instead, some Republicans have argued that the tax breaks will be paid for themselves, with revenue from potential economic growth. Trump’s tariffs this past week could provide another source of offsetting revenue.
Some Republicans say there is precedent for extending tax cuts without offsetting the costs because the changes are not new, but rather existing federal policy.
“If you’re extending the current law, we’re not raising taxes or lowering taxes,” Sen. Mike Crapo, Republican of Idaho, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said on Fox News.
He called the criticism that the tax cuts would add to the deficit “ridiculous”. There is a difference between taxes and spending, he said, “and we need to get that message across to America.”
At the same time, the new Congress will also consider spending cuts, particularly to food stamps and health care programs, targets that conservatives have long sought as part of the annual appropriations process.
A cut is almost certain to come as a result of the COVID-19 subsidy, which helps pay the cost of health insurance for people who buy their policies through the Affordable Care Act exchange.
Supplemental health care was extended through 2025 in Democratic President Joe Biden’s Inflation Relief Act, which also includes green energy tax credits that Republicans want to roll back.
The House Democratic leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, was mocked by Republicans for winning a “big, massive mandate” when House Democrats and Republicans essentially fought to a tie in the November election. GOP winning a narrow majority.
“This idea of some mandate for massive far-right policy changes doesn’t exist, it doesn’t exist,” Jeffries said.
Republicans plan to use a budget process, known as reconciliation, that allows majorities in Congress to pass, essentially along party lines, which can halt a bill’s progress in the Senate unless 60 of the 100 senators agree.
It’s the same process Democrats used when they won power to pass Washington’s Anti-Inflation Act and Obama’s health care law over GOP objections.
Republicans have had a history with Trump and control of Congress, which is no guarantee that they will be able to accomplish their goals, especially in the face of resistance from Democrats.
However, House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has been working closely with Trump on the agenda, has promised a “breakneck” pace in the first 100 days because “we have a lot to sort out.”
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The story has been corrected to reflect that Groundwork Collaborative’s Lindsay Owens spoke of “income inequality,” not “income equality.”
