When Republican President Donald Trump started his nonconsecutive second term on Monday, January 20, small GOP majorities in both branches of Congress and a 6-3 GOP-appointed supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court awaited him. But Republicans in Congress don't necessarily see eye to eye when it comes to funding Trump's legislative and budgetary goals.
Politico reporters Benjamin Guggenheim and Meredith Lee Hill, in an article published on February 9, detail some major tax disagreements within House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-Louisiana) Republican majority.
"Prominent House Republicans are privately warring over how to advance tax cuts that are expiring and President Donald Trump's long list of other tax demands — with Budget Chair Jodey Arrington and deficit hardliner Rep. Chip Roy locked in a struggle against Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith and other senior Republicans," Guggenheim and Hill explain. "The dispute is hindering Speaker Mike Johnson's plan to advance a budget blueprint this week, as different GOP factions continue to squabble over the costs of the tax plan, how to offset them to reduce their deficit impact and possible cost-saving changes to programs including Medicare and assistance for low-income Americans."
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The Politico journalists note that "budget hawks" like Roy and Arrington are "still scouring for additional and highly controversial spending cuts."
"The number that lawmakers had tentatively settled on last Thursday — around $4.7 trillion — would make it virtually impossible to implement anything above an extension of the expiring tax cuts," Guggenheim and Hill report. "House Republicans agreed during their White House meeting last week that they would permanently extend the 2017 tax cuts, which are estimated by Congress' official accountants as costing $4.6 trillion."
But a House Republican, quoted anonymously, told Politico that Roy and Arrington "will make the tax cut portion not passable."
According to Guggenheim and Hill, "Centrists and even some more conservative Republicans are also increasingly alarmed that Arrington keeps raising Medicare reforms as a potential spending offset, according to three Republicans familiar with the ongoing talks. Trump made it clear on the campaign trail that he doesn't want to touch Medicare, but Arrington has suggested a variety of changes to the program that would lower costs in the Ways and Means’ jurisdiction."
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Read Politico's full article at this link.